LETTER: Trading healthcare for votes

President Cyril Ramaphosa has finally found his misplaced pen and assented to National Health Insurance (NHI), and his timing could not have been more opportune (or should I say, opportunistic?). You can almost hear His Excellency’s rendition of Richard III: “A vote, a vote, my people’s lives for a vote!”

We are days away from the biggest election in 30 years and it seems that Uncle Cyril is pulling out all the stops not to move out of the Union Buildings in June. But if the president thought that he could reignite the old “Ramaphoria” with this his latest trick, he is sorely mistaken. Medical aids, health professionals, expert councils, economists, oversight bodies, civil society and a massive chunk of the opposition in parliament have all come out against the president’s latest flourish.

South Africans are yet to be told where the government will find the additional nurses and doctors, and billions upon billions of rand necessary to sustain this project. The experts seem to agree that the only way the government will be able to fund the NHI is by a substantial increase in our taxes, which would mean a growing public purse, ripe for plunder by the corrupt and unscrupulous.

The only hope we have left is that civil society will act swiftly to save us from this terrifying outcome. To all those who will be challenging the new law in court — the DA, AfriForum, the SA Medical Association and all their partners in our vibrant civic community — we say thank you and Godspeed!

Erich Small
Tamboerskloof, Cape Town

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