GOOD Speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
13 June 2023
Note to editor: This is the speech that was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of Parliament, Brett Herron, during today’s debate on the National Health Insurance Bill.
Since apartheid ended, the State has introduced a raft of transformative legislation meant to address structural injustice, exclusion and inequality.
There’s no denying the millions of new homes that have been built as a consequence of the new government’s policies, the new schools and clinics, the new electricity and water connections, and the like.
Equally undeniable is the fact that the structural ills of the past persist. Tremendous colour-coded disparities in the quality of life and state services remain. Our efforts to transform the landscape have reaped thin rewards.
The National Health Insurance Bill isn’t perfect. But the principle it represents is too important to be reduced to another battleground for rightist anti-transformation zealots and Gucci revolutionaries to spew identity politics.
The DA and FF+ want us to believe that South Africa can’t afford a national health care system… because of corruption, because of the devaluing of health insurance company shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and because of the poor conditions in the public health facilities.
The EFF, on the other hand, says the NHI preserves privilege and a two-tier health system.
The one lot wants to scare privileged communities into believing that the NHI will deprive them of the high level of medical care they presently enjoy and pay for. The other lot wants South Africans to believe that the NHI is not aggressive enough in redistributing resources from privileged to poor.
The parties agree that the NHI should be rejected, based on totally opposing interpretations of the Bill. Instead of focusing constructively on tightening provisions of the Bill, it’s just another platform for their politics of fear, mistrust and loathing.
While they squabble over their identity sandwich, inequality and deprivation continue to reign.
The concerns over corruption, poor quality public health facilities and inadequate resources, human and financial, are legitimate. But weaponizing the NHI debate in the run-up to the next election lacks legitimacy.
And so does using State corruption and inefficiency as an excuse to oppose the country’s developmental agenda.
Many nations around the world are presently grappling with their obligation to deliver on the most basic of human rights: the right to adequate medical services regardless of your ability to pay for it.
In Ghana, the first African country to implement a national health insurance scheme, researchers say “the NHIS… has positively impacted on the country’s life expectancy and disease prevention”, and has improved financial access to health care.
South Africa’s NHI aims to address inequality and scarcity of health care resources, and improve health care services for all. It seeks to eliminate price gouging in the private health sector and improve access and quality of care for those who rely on the public health sector.
The objectives are good. Potential barriers to the NHI’s success, including corruption, must be addressed.
We support the Bill because we believe in the principle of universal health care, and we believe in South Africa’s future.
Media Enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 082 518 3264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Janke Tolmay, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 073 367 1223
Email: janke@forgood.org.za