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While President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the National Health Insurance Act (NHIA) into law, this does not mean South Africans should cancel their medical aid contracts.

The signing does not immediately impact medical scheme membership. It is business as usual and medical schemes will continue to enable access to health services.

The medical schemes industry continues as it did before the President assented to the NHIA. The signature of the NHIA by President means that the NHIA is now law, but it does not mean that the entire Act immediately becomes operational. By cancelling their medical aids, South Africans will leave themselves vulnerable and they will not be covered in the unfortunate event of a medical emergency.

As an organisation dedicated to strengthening the health system and advancing the interests of the health citizen, the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF), which represents numerous medical aid schemes, will be challenging the sections of the NHIA that reduce the role of medical schemes. 

BHF does not believe the NHIA in its current form is sufficient to achieve universal health coverage.

More specifically, the BHF will be instituting legal proceedings to challenge, amongst others, section 33 of the NHIA, which is unconstitutional and unlawful, with a view to ensuring the sustainability of the medical schemes industry going forward. 

The BHF’s core aim is to ensure the sustainability of the healthcare sector, including enabling medical schemes, managed care organisations and administrators to continue providing accessible, affordable and quality healthcare to their medical scheme beneficiaries. 

In the long term, the NHIA aims to reduce medical schemes to a complementary health care funding role. BHF is of the strong view that medical schemes are a national asset and should play a significant role in creating access to health care services now and in the future. 

Issued by Eclipse Communications on behalf of the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF)