President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the contentious National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law on Wednesday 15 May 2024. The Bill sets in motion the government’s ambitious plans for universal health coverage. Profmed has maintained its position that the NHI Bill is unconstitutional, with no changes made since the green paper was released in 2011 despite lengthy submissions and petitions by Profmed to the President to amend the Bill .
Profmed and other medical schemes through our association with the Health Funders Association are poised to challenge the Bill constitutionally and we have secured leading human rights and constitutional lawyers, namely Advocates Adila Hassim and Wim Trengrove to take up the fight and protect every medical scheme members right to access healthcare.
These challenges will enable the retention of medical scheme benefits for members in the long term, if not indefinitely. Although we cannot pre-empt the outcome of the anticipated legal challenges to the Bill, we feel confident that the courts would come to a favourable conclusion regarding the continued role of medical schemes alongside a workable and amended NHI.
