News

On 3 march 2011, Professor Di McIntyre was invited by the London School of Economics and Political Science to give a public lecture titled “Why and how is South Africa pursuing a universal health system?”

The aim of the lecture was to critically analyse how the South African health system currently performs relative to the goal of universal coverage. A key feature of the health system is its large private health insurance (PHI) sector. South Africa has the highest proportion of spending funded via PHI schemes in the world (accounting for 44% of total health care expenditure) – but PHI only covers 16% of the population. The result is a very skewed distribution of health care benefits across the country. Addressing the public-private mix is a key motivation for the proposed introduction of national health insurance (NHI). The lecture explored the main elements of NHI, which will be largely tax funded, and highlighted key challenges in pursuing this policy, particularly in the context of powerful private interests.

Source: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2011/20110303t1815vNT.aspx