Medicine and the Law

On 15 May 2024, the National Health Insurance Act No. 20 of 2023 (the Act) was signed into law, and South Africa (SA) officially adopted a national health insurance (NHI) system as part of its efforts to achieve universal healthcare across the country. While NHI has been controversial and much talked about, plenty of how the scheme will operate remains an unknown, and has not been defined within the Act. However, it is evident that, with SA's limited healthcare budget, the NHI scheme is not going to cover everything for everyone. Some decisions will need to be made about what kinds of healthcare and other benefits South Africans can expect to have covered by the scheme - in other words, decisions about what will be included under NHI and what will be excluded. This paper does not aim to discuss the constitutionality or legality of the NHI Act, but focuses only on the issue of how government ought to consider making decisions about what services the NHI covers.