The South African Department of Health's new Single Exit Price bill will
bring about an average saving of 20% on medicines and help introduce
transparency to a private healthcare industry that needs regulating,
according to the region's Board Healthcare Funders.
South Africa Dep Of Health
Department of Health to pass the Single Exit Price bill.
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The Managing Director of the Board, Mr. Humphrey Zokufa said: "There are no
countries in the western world without a regulatory framework around pricing of
healthcare, it is absolutely essential that the private sector sees itself as
part of the entire healthcare solution and that together we demonstrate our
ability to be a platform for a National Health Insurance system in South
Africa."
Zokufa said that the Board Healthcare Funders (BHF) would give its full
support to the development and formulation of the legislation. "We believe that
the implementation will give rise to a downward pressure on the price of private
healthcare, which in turn will have a knock-on effect on premium paid by
consumers," he said.
Zokufa said that, at its current level, the South African private healthcare
industry cannot support free market principles. "In an environment of perfect
competition, the consumer would have a choice of where to obtain a service, they
would be in a position to assess the quality of the service and would have the
power to buy the service or not to buy the service," he explained. "This is
exacerbated by a market where there is a private hospital oligopoly and a
scarcity of specialist skills."
The BHF was pushing as much as possible for transparency in the system, in
view of the shocking information coming out the private healthcare industry. For
example, it was recently estimated that private hospital groups manage to
overcharge patients for anesthetic gasses to the tune of R300 million each year.
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