Health Minister Zweli Mkhize will unpack the details of the approved National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill today. A Business Day report says Jackson Mthembu – Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation – announced yesterday that the Cabinet had finally approved the Bill, but did not provide any details on it. The Cabinet approved the Bill for release for public consultation over three months from June 2018 to September 2018. Mthembu said the input from that process has now been incorporated in the latest version of the Bill. The approved Bill will now be subjected to another ‘rigorous’ parliamentary process, Mthembu said. Its main aim is to launch an NHI fund that will purchase health services on behalf of patients from public and private sector providers, which will be free at the point of care. ‘Once the Bill has been passed, the existing draft implementation plan will be amended accordingly to give effect to the transitional arrangement of rolling out NHI in phases,’ said Mthembu. According to the Minister, the transition period after the Bill is passed will allow for the repeal of certain pieces of legislation to facilitate ‘alignment and coherence’.

More on this in POLICY WATCH section (below)