Private healthcare funders should dump the various legal challenges against the National Health Insurance (NHI) – which were likely to drag on for another 10 years at least – and rather engage in dialogue to address their concerns, was the advice of experts at the annual Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) conference. – MedicalBrief (9 July 2026).
Legal challenges to the NHI Act are so varied it could take another 10 to 15 years to finalise – but the cases were worth pursuing because of the impact the NHI could have on the quality of healthcare, said Neil Kirby, BHF’s lead attorney
“The issue is not the principle of universal access to healthcare, but the standard at which that healthcare will be provided,” he said.
Wits economist Professor Alex van den Heever said the private medical scheme industry has been left to its own devices as “the government (focused mainly on the NHI) failed to attend to key aspects that could have made the industry’s future more sustainable”.