Medical schemes' greed

The CEO of one of SA's biggest medical schemes has warned that the sector is alienating customers with what looks like profiteering and catering for SA's elites. As a result, the schemes unintentionally bolster support for the same National Health Insurance (NHI) that will put them out of business.

- William Saunderson-Meyer

Bestmed CEO Leo Dlamini said this week that successive hefty rises in membership fees badly harm the medical aid sector's reputation. They reinforce in the public mind the idea that the NHI is a cure-all for the nation's health care issues.

“We run the risk of an industry that's unaffordable. It doesn't help the narrative against the NHI,” he says.

Dlamini defends the fee increases as inescapable because of medical inflation. That is aggravated, he says, by a range of factors, especially the schemes' statutory obligation to pay prescribed minimum benefits (PMBs) for a government-determined range of afflictions. Unsurprisingly, Bestmed's best-preferred solution is to cut PMBs.