What is happening with the National Health Insurance Bill?

The idea behind National Health Insurance is to make sure all South Africans and long-term residents can get basic medical care without having to pay providers like doctors, pharmacies or hospitals directly. The bill calls this 'universal healthcare' and it aims to make sure that everyone can get basic medical care, no matter how rich or poor they are.

At the moment, government pays for public healthcare (like clinics and public hospitals) and medical schemes pay for private healthcare. Members of medical schemes pay monthly contributions in exchange for set benefits.

Discovery Health suggests that National Health Insurance and medical schemes work together

The first version of the National Health Insurance Bill suggested that government starts a National Health Insurance Fund that it will administer and use to pay for all healthcare in South Africa. In other words, this version of the bill said that National Health Insurance would eventually replace medical schemes. But the bill is not final and many details still need to be decided.

Your administrator, Discovery Health, presented to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health on 25 January 2022 to suggest that the private and the public sector work together to make sure all South Africans can get healthcare, no matter their income. In other words, they suggest that National Health Insurance (public healthcare) and medical schemes (private healthcare) work together to make sure everyone can see a doctor and get treatment when they need it.

Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic proved that a blended system could work

In South Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic proved that all residents of South Africans benefit when the public sector and the private sector work together to buy and pay for medical care. By working together, we can use medical scheme's experience and government's reach to make sure that everyone can easily get healthcare.

You've experienced this in how we get vaccinated against COVID-19. As a South African, you only need to register on the system and show up for your vaccination. Because of the shared vaccination registration system, government and the medical schemes handle payment without you having to do anything. Medical schemes use their funds to pay for their members' vaccinations and government pays for everyone else.

This example of how the private and public healthcare sectors can work together wasn't available when the National Health Insurance Bill was written in 2019. Discovery Health argues that this is a good reason to reconsider how to implement National Health Insurance.

What this means for you

For now, your medical scheme membership remains the same. We will let you know if this changes.