Treasury expects NHI funding shortfall to rise to R55bn by 2030 - Business Day - 30 Oct 2019

Treasury expects NHI funding shortfall to rise to R55bn by 2030 - Business Day - 30 Oct 2019

Business Day - 30 Oct 2019

"The government’s original estimates for implementing National Health Insurance (NHI) are unaffordable in the current fiscal environment, and even a limited package of reforms will require an extra R33bn on top of the existing health budget from 2025/26, the Treasury said on Wednesday.

Officials remained tight-lipped about how the ambitious plan is to be financed, saying only that discussions were still under way at a political level.

NHI is the government’s plan for achieving universal health coverage, which aims to ensure patients receive care that is free at the point of delivery. The government is aiming to implement NHI by 2025, but questions still remain about what it will cost and how it will be paid for. The first piece of enabling legislation for NHI, which paves the way for a central fund to purchase services on behalf of the population, is currently before parliament.

“Originally, NHI costs were projected to increase public health spending from about 4% to 6% of GDP over 15 years. However, given the macroeconomic and fiscal outlook, the estimates to roll out NHI that were published in the NHI Green Paper in 2011 and in the White Paper in 2017 are no longer affordable,” the Treasury said in its medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS), tabled in parliament by finance minister Tito Mboweni.

The medium-term budget sets out the dire state of the economy, with growth far weaker than expected and a reduction in both medium- and long-term growth forecasts. Economic growth is now projected at 0.5% for 2019, down from the 1.5% forecast in the February budget. It means the government’s revenue projections have been sharply reduced, and spending on goods and services is under increasing pressure from the state’s growing wage bill and the crisis in state-owned enterprises (SOEs)."

Read more:

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2019-10-30-treasury-expects-nhi-funding-shortfall-to-rise-to-r50bn-by-2030/