The SAs government is sticking to its guns to bring a law that would cut down on the spiralling medical claims, amounting to R100bn, and allow for staggered payments instead of lump sums paid to victims, reports IoL.
Medical claims have skyrocketed in the past five years with Finance Minister Tito Mboweni saying the fiscus was overstretched. Mboweni announced in his budget speech last month that there were a number of initiatives to reduce medical claims.
The report says the programming committee has said the State Liability Bill would be sent to the justice committee. One of the proposals in the bill is that if the claim awarded against the state was more than R1m the court must issue an “order that compensation be paid to the creditor in terms of a structured settlement”. This is to avoid paying large sums of money amounting to millions of rands to what is known as “once and for all”. The structured payments include future medical costs.
Chair of the justice committee Bulelani Magwanishe is quoted in the report as saying that they would deal with the State Liability Bill after the June recess. In the budget review, it was stated that medical claims were stretching the fiscus.
[link url="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/government-to-bring-in-a-law-to-cut-down-on-spiralling-medical-claims-44903705"]Full IoL report[/link]
[link url="https://pmg.org.za/bill/797/"]Passage of the Bill[/link]