NHI finance document ready: Minister

Motsoaledi appeared before Parliament’s Health Portfolio committee today to update them on government’s plan to overcome unequal access to health care by introducing the NHI. 

The biggest point of contention and discussion over this has been who will pay and how.

The long-awaited discussion document on financing options was supposed to be released in April last year. 

Several deadlines for this release have come and gone since then. 

While Motsoaledi now says this document is ready and will be released once cabinet has seen it, consumers and health economists want to see whether better of individuals will be asked to pay more tax to fund NHI, especially considering that Treasury has always maintained that the state could only afford to implement it if the economy started growing much more vigorously at 5%.

(File photo: Gallo Images)