Batten Down The Hatches

Private money could take the hardest hit from plans for free health for all. What shape is the private health business in to stand up to this?

- Ancillar Mangena

Twenty eight million. That’s the number of people in Africa who will die from cardiovascular illness, diabetes, and other non-communicable diseases, according to the World Health Organization. That’s 46% of all deaths in Africa by 2030. Half of these deaths, according to a 2017 article in the BMC Public Health journal, are because hospitals aren’t good enough.

“Large numbers of our people continue to die prematurely and to suffer unnecessarily from poor health. Treatable conditions are not being treated on time and preventable diseases are not being prevented,” says South Africa’s Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on his department’s website.

It is because times are tough in South Africa. Gross domestic product growth was -0.7% in the first quarter of 2017, while unemployment increased to 27.7%. Medical aid cover is expensive. It costs about R4,500 ($340) a month, on average, for a family of four. That is almost half of South Africa’s average salary of R10,680 ($815) per month, according to BankservAfrica. It means a mere eight million people, out of 55 million, can afford cover.

To make matters worse, last year, 16 of the top 20 medical aid schemes had to reach into investment funds to stay afloat. It also meant that, this year, scheme members received price increases, on their cover, far higher than consumer price inflation.

It is so bad the South African government wants to start National Health Insurance (NHI), the first step to free healthcare for all, by 2025, bankrolled by the tax payer.