Regulate health costs: Motsoaledi
Image by: Robert Tshabalala
Private healthcare prices in South Africa have to be regulated, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said.
Speaking at the Board of Healthcare Funders conference at Sun City, Motsoaledi called for a pricing negotiation forum, saying healthcare in South Africa was "predatory".
He said the health structure was worse now than during apartheid.
"There is a tendency to believe that a long and healthy life is the right of those that can afford it and that is totally wrong," he said.
"The reality is that our people are dying in large numbers. We are running a healthcare system in this country that is not working."
The solution lay in re-engineering the primary healthcare system.
Motsoaledi announced a plan to introduce three streams of care, which would have a particular impact in rural areas.
Board spokesman Heidi Kruger welcomed Motsoaledi's comments, saying: "I think it's brilliant. The sooner it comes through the better. We can't have a situation where there is no containment on costs."
Kruger said private healthcare providers charged whatever they wanted, "pushing up" medical aid premiums.
The current system was an "open-ended liability for funders" so medical schemes could not budget properly.
Regulating healthcare costs would be "very constructive" and "provide certainty", Kruger said.
Motsoaledi is hoping to begin setting up the pricing forum by the end of the year.
However, he told delegates at the conference that hospitals were creating a stumbling block in the process because that sector did not want to have its prices regulated.
Motsoaledi accused the public and private health sectors of "engaging in destructive, unsustainable practices". He was particularly outspoken about the high cost of private hospital treatment and called for a stronger emphasis on primary care, rather than the present curative system with its "rapidly escalating" costs.
"The public health system is in a crisis of quality and I am going to deal with it head on, but it is not an excuse for profiteering," he said.
"Our country is going in the wrong direction . all of us, public and private," he said. "We have a predatory healthcare system where the sick and the vulnerable are the ones who get attacked."
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Regulate health costs: Motsoaledi
For Commenters Consideration | Please stick to the subject matterCOMMENTS [21]
Wort
Posted 685 days agogale
Posted 685 days agodinkum2
Posted 685 days agoOur people are dying in public hospitals due to the high prices in private care.
It is logical!
If the private healthcare was affordable then our people would be able to get excellent care instead of being murdered in public facilities.
Here's a thought - Aaron:
if we punish tax-payers by an additional 5 to 10% surcharge then it becomes affordable and to hell with the overtaxed public - that's REAL medicine!
Laughable incompetent ANC BULLDUST!
Beelzebub
Posted 685 days agoBut what is the alternative?
Haven't we seeing the insides of state hospitals?
Haven't we read stories about state nurses who don't see the need to do their job?
Haven't we read stories about lack of equipment caused by rampant corruption?
Which can you afford?
Spending money on private healthcare? Money can be replaced, your life cannot.
...or...
Taking a gamble on a state hospital?
pws80
Posted 685 days agoYou are just like the rest of the ANC scum, useless, a liar, you can't take responsibility for your own inability and inaction, so blame the private sector for being competent.
deepthroat
Posted 685 days agoWhat will the next minister of health have to say in 10 years when the government have also destroyed the private healthcare sector. Just go and ask our neighbors in Zimbabwe.
Why must I be responsible for other citizens healthcare costs when I am already over taxed, and then the minister also wants me to contribute to NHI and then on top of that I will also have to pay for for private healthcare because NHI will not deliver quality health care.
Maybe its time that GEMS members are forced to use public healthcare facilities so that government officials can experience the kind of service that they provide to the citizens of this country. This will also be a excellent way to get revenue into the public healthcare system.
Baragwatath hospital dispenses about 3 000 000 ARV scripts per month, the whole system is done manually. There is no control, no systems in place, all drugs are received and dispensed manually. Eat that minister.
When was the last time you visited a day clinic at a public facility, have you seen what the filing rooms look like, that is why patient have to wait for days on end before they can be seen. It is a administrative disaster, the file are lying on the ground in heaps. Patients still have to bring a card with them like the old library cards we used 20 years ago!
Now you want to come and destroy the private system and degrade it to the same level to make up for the levels of incompetence in the public system. Looter!
The government created its own monster, so first go and fix your own mess and dont take the whole country down with you.
TheNewOrder
stonearch
Siiinudeity
Posted 685 days agoDo your job dude.
Biko-Lives
Posted 685 days agodinkum2
We need to destroy every vestige of excellence <id white> and replace it with revolutionary incompetence <ie black>.
This is the socialist imperative of our times and luckily we have people like you and Foolius to lead the way.
Yours affectionately and revolutionary in solidarity.
Forward the struggle!
deepthroat
I believe in a free market where your success is determined by how efficient and competent you are. Where the price of the service you offer is determined free market influences and not by government. Where jobs can only be created sustainably in the long term by growing private industry and business and not by government. For this to happen you have to create a stable environment where investors are prepared to invest money to create what is required. Government can only support this process and provide services to us using tax revenue from this investors. Not by killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
You on the other hand are a socialist who believe that the world owes you everything, that everything must be regulated, controlled and nationalized because that is the only way you could get you hands on resources. You cannot do it with competency and skill playing by the global rules.
So in principal I cannot agree with your socialistic, communist and idiotic views.
TheNewOrder
pws80
Posted 685 days agoBara generators fail, Motsoaledi blames Netcare
Dozens of babies die in EC PUBLIC hospitals because they are so dirty, Motsoaledi blames Discovery.
Yes, Motsoaledi, these evil private companies are the reason public health is failing.
Right? RIGHT?
What a complete fool.
dinkum2
Well said, all hospitals - be they private or state - should offer the same sub-standard care at affordable cost.
What are you smoking this morning?
BTW:
I myself - at 64 - cannot afford hospitals at all - have no medical aid and will NOT enter a state hospital.
In case of need a bullet is the cheapest option.
Smaiza
How many babies died today in public hospital pws80, cause you know too much?
deepthroat
Let me explain to you as you seem to miss the whole point:
You said: "Maybe those dozens of Babies were not going to die, if the so called private hospitals pricing was the same as public hospitals and by the way those doctors gets training from the public hospitals before."
1.They are called private hospitals for a reason, they are managed and funded by private companies who's main aim in life is to make a profit. Why do you think the Hilton hotel charges more than the Formula 1 Hotel? Because people who stay in the Hilton are prepared to pay more. Using your argument I must be able to go to the Hilton hotel and demand to get the same I get for the price of the Formula 1 Hotel.
2.Private hospitals are not NGO's, the reason they can afford better resources is because they can prepared to pay market price.
3.No professional person will commit long term careers in the chaotic circumstances we have in these public facilities. I bet you will not last more than 2 years.
You said: "How many babies died today in public hospital pws80, cause you know too much?"
They did not die because he knows too much. The died because of dirty public hospitals, nurses who are not competent or motivated to do the most basic things like washing hands, keeping the wards clean, act like they actually care about the babies. If they did that the babies would not have died.
You walk into any private hospitals and yo will see that the most stringent rules are enforced when it comes to hygiene, then go into a public facility and observe the same. If the public service just do the basics right which does not take money but attitude to doe the right thing these things will not happen.
Get your facts right first before you come and waste your brain on this forum making Foolius statements.
stonearch
Posted 685 days agoTheNewOrder
Posted 685 days agoSo apartheid wasn't ALL bad then!!
stonearch
kh'allawaya
Posted 685 days ago...How about explaining the construction of a state-of-the-art hospital for VIP (ANC) elite and who is going to staff such??????......