Trade union Solidarity has submitted thousands of comments on the National Health Insurance Bill (NHI) on behalf of everyone who expressed their concerns about the controversial Bill on the trade union’s dedicated NHI platform. In addition, the trade union submitted its own comments on the Bill, including inputs consolidated from the trade union’s crisis summit on the NHI held in August.
According to Werner Human, deputy CEO of Solidarity, the trade union condemned the widely debated Bill as being unconstitutional, and also pointed out that the implementation of the Bill would have disastrous consequences for South Africa.
“Solidarity’s comments are based on the fact that, in terms of the UN’s Human Rights Declaration, you cannot give up freedom in order to try to create an ideological conception of equality. The Bill violates several constitutional rights, including freedom as described in section 39 as well as in section 22 of the Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of choosing a profession,” Human said.
According to Human, all South Africans will suffer under the mismanagement and corruption that repeatedly runs riot at state institutions. “The NHI will be no different than an Eskom or SAA; however, this fund is even bigger and will be exposed to the same type of mismanagement. It would be unfair, unreasonable and irrational to assume that the proposed bill will not have drastic socio-economic consequences for millions of South Africans,” Human said.
[link url="https://solidariteit.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NHI_-SOLIDARITY_2018-09-21.pdf"]Press release[/link]