SOUTH AFRICA TO BOOST ACCESS TO LOW-COST DRUGS
South African officials are currently studying plans to expand private sector health insurance coverage. According to local media, reforms currently on the table could see the low-income drug market "rocket" by 2007. The plans follow studies that private provision has barely grown beyond 7mn citizens, or just 14% of the population, since the end of the apartheid era.
Moreover, it appears many of the newer members of private healthcare schemes are so-called "buy-downs" who opt for lower-cost schemes in order to save money. This has concentrated consumer spending in the primary care sector. There is currently no mandatory national health insurance system in South Africa, but a comprehensive scheme is expected to be introduced within three years. In the meantime, the government is examining shorter-term measures.
However, South Africa's finance ministry is reportedly opposed to plans for Social Health Insurance (SHI), which would see a mandatory tax on the employed. Nevertheless, reforms expected to be drafted by year-end could envisage changes to prescribed minimum benefits (PMBs), which stipulate the diseases that each private scheme must cover. Insurers have complained that this raises the cost of minimum coverage.
Meanwhile, government officials are "hopeful" that key industry players including pharmaceutical firms and hospitals will work to lower the cost of drug provision under the plans.
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