Social Security

Heather McLeod is working with Innovative Medicines South Africa (IMSA) to put in the public domain material and evidence that will progress the technical work of developing a National Health Insurance system in South Africa.

IMSA National Health Insurance Project

  IMSA NHI Library containing policy briefs, links to documents, slides and spreadsheets

The African National Congress (ANC) Health Plan of 1994 outlined a structure for a National Health Insurance system. From 1994 to 2003 there were a series of committees of inquiry and task teams that confirmed the need for the reform of healthcare financing and provided more detail on specific aspects of the proposal. While substantial work was done by the Department of Health until 2005, these documents were not in the public domain. Since mid-2008, the ANC has been working on a revised vision of National health Insurance, but the documents are not in the public domain. The ANC promised in its election manifesto for the 2009 elections that “the National Health Insurance System (NHI) system, will be phased in over the next five years”.

This project is dedicated to making material on healthcare financing and reform available to stakeholders to enable them to engage with Government on the details of proposals for a National Health Insurance system. It is about making a positive contribution to making NHI a reality. The dedicated NHI web-site begins with a background section to bring the reader up-to-date with historic developments and the nature of healthcare financing reform. The intention is to release a series of NHI Policy Briefs, approximately one each month, dealing with a particular issue in the reforms. As documents are released by Government, so the topics covered may be amended to deal with controversial issues.

The purpose of the IMSA NHI Policy Briefs and the related IMSA web-site is to put in the public domain material and evidence that will progress the technical work of developing a National Health Insurance system in South Africa. This includes tools for costing NHI and evidence on where savings could be achieved in moving to a future mandatory system with universal coverage.

Professor Heather McLeod has been engaged to assist IMSA in this task, to bring an academic perspective and rigour to the collection and presentation of evidence.

Background Briefs and Policy Briefs currently available:

•Background Brief: Understanding Healthcare Financing

•Background Brief: National Health Insurance in South Africa

•National Health Insurance in SA: An Introduction for Journalists

•IMSA NHI Glossary of Healthcare Financing Terms

•Policy Brief 1: The Population for Universal Coverage

•Policy Brief 2: Expanding Health Insurance Coverage

•Policy Brief 3: The Impact of Chronic Disease on a Future NHI

•Policy Brief 4: The Impact of HIV on a Future NHI

Forthcoming Policy Briefs:

•Policy Brief 5: The Impact of Cancer on a Future NHI

The IMSA NHI Library contains policy briefs, links to documents, slides and spreadsheets on these topics. Sign-up on that site to be notified about the addition of new material to the IMSA NHI Library.