NHI to help women, children and the elderly first

Medical scheme members are likely to lose their tax credits to help pay for the first set of national health insurance benefits, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said yesterday.

In a briefing on the government's latest policy position on NHI, which will be published as a revised white paper in the Government Gazette today, Motsoaledi said the first beneficiaries would be women, children and the elderly. "The central philosophy is that we will start pooling funds for people who are not on medical aid, starting at the bottom."

The government provided R20-billion in tax credits to members of medical schemes in 2015, many of them among the wealthy and the least in need of government support, he said. Only 8.8 million people belonged to medical schemes in a population of about 55.5 million.

Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced in his February budget speech that an NHI fund would be established to progressively expand the services it provided. At the time, he said the Treasury was considering various financing options for the fund, including changing the tax credits for medical scheme contributions.

Motsoaledi said the initial priorities of the NHI fund included healthcare at schools, childhood cancer, women's health (including pregnancy, cervical cancer and breast cancer), mental health services, disability and rehabilitation services, and hip, knee and cataract surgery for the elderly.

The cost of implementing these priority programmes would be about R69-billion over four years, Motsoaledi said, which was less than the total tax credits extended to medical scheme members over the same period.