DA's national health plan is a better option to costly NHI

Why buy a new Rolls-Royce when you can fix the family Toyota? There is a better way of ensuring affordable healthcare for all, writes Wilmot James.

Any serious opposition party or government-in-waiting, such as the DA, must strive to build an inclusive society where everyone has access to the educational and economic opportunities necessary to get ahead in life. The first step on this journey is to guarantee universal healthcare.

This is because health is the great enabler. A brilliant schooling system is useless to a sick and undernourished child. A fantastic job offer cannot help a man dying of tuberculosis.

For too many South Africans, the circumstances of your birth determine your access to life-saving healthcare. The current status quo entrenches poverty and inequality and insults the values of freedom, fairness and opportunity for all, upon which the DA is built.

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It is for this reason that we have formulated and approved our own offer for universal healthcare, Our Health Plan, as an alternative to National Health Insurance. Our Health Plan will go a long way in ensuring that no person is denied quality healthcare because they are poor.

Indeed, this innovative plan can be rolled out sooner, is far more affordable, is fairer, and aspects of it have already been shown to work in practice. It is the result of extensive consultation with academic and industry experts.

The core components of the plan are faster service delivery, as well as greater affordability, fairness and practicability.

Our Health Plan will provide quality healthcare to all within five to eight years, whereas NHI will take 10 to 15 years to implement. This is twice as long, meaning millions will suffer unnecessarily.

Our Health Plan will provide quality healthcare to all at a cost that we as a country can easily afford, whereas NHI is budgeted to cost up to an additional R182-billion per year, which is entirely unaffordable and, like the nuclear deal, could bankrupt us.

Our Health Plan can be implemented using our current health budget, but with an additional R6-billion achieved by bringing the current medical aid tax credit of R17-billion on budget.

Medical aid contributions would no longer be tax deductible - but the remaining R11-billion of additional revenue would go to reducing the costs of medical aid.

By bringing the medical aid tax credit on budget and allocating some of it to build better services in the public health sector, those with medical aid will be cross-subsidising those without, an act of health justice.

block_quotes_start By bringing the medical aid tax credit on budget, those with medical aid will cross-subsidise those without, an act of health justice block_quotes_end

Many of the aspects of Our Health Plan have already been successfully implemented in the Western Cape, and the results speak for themselves.

The DA-run Western Cape province has a record of delivering better healthcare than any other province.

For example, the maternal mortality rate in South Africa is 153 deaths per 100,000 live births, while the rate for the Western Cape is almost half that, at 84.

Our Health Plan aims to keep what should be kept, fix what should be fixed, and smartly extend services that should be extended within the limits of the national purse.

After all, why buy a new Rolls-Royce when you can fix the family Toyota?

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Essentially, Our Health Plan ensures a comprehensive package of quality services within the public health system - free at the point of access to everyone, while retaining and reforming medical aid.

For South Africans who have no medical aid, the reforms will deliver improved service at clinics and hospitals, enhanced maternal and childcare provision and access to efficient (and free at the point of service) emergency services in urban and rural areas.

Those who are on medical aid will benefit from enhanced choice and greater access to more efficient (and free at the point of service) ambulance services.

All this is possible within our current resource envelope, requiring no new or additional taxes, despite health being our second-largest expenditure item after education.

Our Health Plan will mean that one day, our citizens will be able to visit public hospitals and encounter security guards comforting the relatives of the sick, medical personnel on task and on time, a spotless environment, all infection-control protocols observed and hospital wards organised and equipped for decent and dignifying human care.

Under DA governance, hospitals will be places where people are cared for and lives saved - not places where people go to be abused and to die.

Our Health Plan will provide a solid foundation on which South Africa can build an inclusive society.

James is a DA MP and the party's spokesman on health