Legal experts say the NHI Bill only gives a vague indication of what will become of medical aids once it’s in full effect – leaving the more nuanced medical insurance industry in the dark.
Legal experts at Webber Wentzel say that South Africa’s National Health Insurance Bill has left many questions and mounting worries over what will happen to the country’s medical insurance industry once it has been implemented.
The Bill has been closely scrutinised by various stakeholders in the healthcare sector, and concerns have been raised by medical schemes and insurers about the effect the Bill will have on their current businesses.How these services will be funded;General provisions applicable to how the fund will operate;The source of income of the Fund and transitional arrangements.
While it is expected that the Minister of Health will introduce regulations limiting benefits to services not reimbursable by the Fund, there has been zero indication when these regulations will be published.According to the legal experts, there are four broad categories of businesses that will be impacted by the NHI.
“It is apparent that there is an overlap of products provided for in the Insurance Act and offered under the MSA,” the experts said. “To the extent that an exemption was granted to an insurer in terms of section 8 of the MSA, and subject to the conditions of the exemption, the insurer was permitted to continue to underwrite those products until the expiry of the exemption,” Webber Wenztel said.
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