Since the National Health Insurance Bill was proposed, the idea of national health insurance in South Africa has been met with mixed reviews from the public.

Bills take a while to pass, so there is still much work to be done before anything actually changes. In the interim, you can read the proposed bill by following this link.

Context is everything, and Carte Blanche wants you to have all of the information. They did a bit of investigating into what the adoption of the bill would mean for South Africans.

Until now a National Health Insurance has been little understood and much feared. But South Africans agree that medical care is expensive. Private schemes are beyond the reach of most and about 85% of people depend on a crumbling public healthcare system.

We sit down with Dr Nicholas Crisp – the man brought in to set up the NHI’s administrative and operational capacity for the Department of Health – for a glimpse inside the real hope that the NHI could herald for the future.

I’ll leave you with their findings:

[source:carteblanche]