The Democratic Alliance on Tuesday questioned the constitutionality of the National Health Insurance Bill and vowed to use all legal options to fight what it deems a bad draft law designed to turn the health system into "another state-owned enterprise".
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said the bill published last week was part of a policy trend of nationalisation that included land and the South African Reserve Bank.
"This is the nationalisation of health care in South Africa," he told a media briefing at Parliament.
Maimane said the quality of public care provided at present to more than 80 percent of South Africans was of pressing concern and needed to be raised to the standard of private health care, but the bill would not fix the problem.
Instead, it would cripple the economy and the private health care sector and see the elite who pushed it into law fly out of the country for quality medical treatment when they needed it.
Maimane said the bill would not pass constitutional muster because it undermined the role of provinces in providing health care.
- African News Agency
