The South African Communist Party has lent its support through a picket at the Union Buildings in Tshwane, as President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the National Health Insurance Bill (NHI) into law.

SACP secretary general Solly Mapaila, and other members of the Party Central Committee and rank-and-file activists, gathered from 12:00.

Ramaphosa signed the Bill into law amid criticism, with business and political parties expressing disappointment with the decision.

Government said it hopes to use the NHI to achieve universal coverage for health services and, through this, overcome socioeconomic imbalances and past inequities.

The SACP said the NHI era must represent an irreversible rupture with the present “unequal two-tiered healthcare regime”, which it said is underpinned by income and wealth inequalities.

“These racialised and gendered class inequalities are the conditions, results and levers of the accumulation of our society’s wealth on a capitalistic basis,” the SACP added.

It highlighted that to tackle the class inequalities in access to quality healthcare, the NHI had a focus on redistributing healthcare resources to benefit all the people, the majority of whom were the working class and poor.

“This requires system-wide structural transformation and development. The SACP reiterates the importance of progressive redistribution from high incomes, above all else from the economic surplus appropriated by capitalist bosses, to deliver quality universal healthcare coverage,” it said.

The party said the signing was a watershed moment towards aligning the country’s healthcare system with the principles of equality and social solidarity.

The SACP says once the Bill is signed into law, the monumental task will be the full implementation of the NHI, which includes the provision of robust primary healthcare.

Part of this work will be the establishment of an NHI Fund, guaranteeing free, quality, and comprehensive healthcare coverage for all.

The SACP called on the working class and other progressive sections of the country’s society to unite to defend the “advance to quality healthcare for all, against the reactionary elements and class forces who want to perpetuate inequality in healthcare”.