The two fundamental issues with the new white paper on National Health Insurance (NHI) are a single payer fund and the nationalisation of private healthcare without compensation.
Single payer fund
In terms of the single payer fund, the white paper believes that the NHI can use bulk purchasing power to drive down the price of healthcare services. However, it then simultaneously declares that it will accredit medical service providers – public and private – and then set the prices at which they can sell their services to the NHI. It specifically states that it will deploy a “uniform reimbursement strategy” and that accredited service providers will not be allowed to deviate from that.
This raises a fundamental question. If the NHI is going to regulate the price at which the services are being procured, why does it need to use the bulk purchasing power of a single fund to reduce prices?
Nationalising private service providersContinue reading…