{"id":852957,"date":"2026-03-05T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=852957"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T10:16:13","slug":"a-big-prediction-about-the-nhi-is-coming-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/852957\/a-big-prediction-about-the-nhi-is-coming-true\/","title":{"rendered":"A big prediction about the NHI is coming true"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has conceded that the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme is likely to be held up in court for many years, with even the ‘best’ outcome prolonging the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing the Portfolio Committee on Health this week, the minister said there are currently 14 legal cases against the NHI, with a 15th case coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Chief Justice has issued a directive postponing several Constitutional Court hearings indefinitely until specific challenges are heard, even if this goes in the government’s favour, the legal challenges won’t disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case to be heard is specifically against the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and National Assembly processes followed in getting the NHI Bill to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s desk for signing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This case will be heard between 5 and 7 May 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it is ultimately found that the processes leading to the NHI Act were flawed, the laws could be scuppered, leading to a protracted period of redrafting and reprocessing, taking years to get to a point any policy could be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, even if the case goes in favour of the government, the court cases that were put on hold will then continue,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case, any adverse ruling against the litigants will likely lead to an appeal and further challenges, leaving the NHI laws under litigation for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Motsoaledi, this could see the NHI dragged into court for 15 to 20 years. For context, even with no challenges, the rollout of the NHI was seen as a decades-long process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This outcome should come as no surprise, however, as many stakeholders warned ahead of the NHI’s signing into law that this would be the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The health department itself acknowledged this eventuality, with former minister Joe Phaahla flagging the impending “onslaught” of legal challenges in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NHI was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2024, ahead of the 2024 National Elections. The administration at the time was an ANC majority, which fell away following the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parties within the new administration under the Government of National Unity (GNU) oppose the scheme. The NHI Act is now law, but it has not been promulgated or implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa has agreed not to promulgate any sections of the Act until specific court cases have been settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NHI paused but will continue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the same briefing to parliament, Motsoaledi made it clear that even though the NHI Act has been paused, this does not apply to the groundwork of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He confirmed that the department will still build public academic hospitals and medical schools, roll out digital systems and continue work on the regulation of pricing in the private healthcare sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In line with this, the latest 2026 budget allocates around R9.3 billion to the NHI, in both direct and indirect funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes close to R1.5 billion in direct NHI grants over the next three years, as well as over R7.8 billion in \u201cindirect\u201d NHI funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The direct funding\u2014provincial NHI grants\u2014are relatively small, amounting to R475 million, R497million and R513 million over the medium term (2026-2028).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is in line with the spending on NHI grants in 2025, which totalled R467 million, reflecting an upward trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, indirect funding is also escalating, from R2.56 billion to R2.6 billion, then to R2.7 billion, between 2026 and 2028. Over R3.3 billion was spent in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The direct grant generally relates to the National Department of Health\u2019s preparations for the implementation of the NHI on a provincial level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes testing reforms, improving primary healthcare facility services, and aligning infrastructure with national and provincial policy directives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The indirect financing, meanwhile, is usually more focused on background public healthcare improvements that are part of the general NHI project, but not related to direct NHI healthcare services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes infrastructure upgrades and the modernisation of healthcare systems, with a strong focus on digital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While both these types of spending are tied to the implementation of the NHI, they are not necessarily tied to the scheme\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has conceded that the NHI is likely to be held up in court for many years, with even the ‘best’ outcome prolonging the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":736575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[19423,12033],"class_list":["post-852957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-aaron-motsoaledi","tag-nhi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852971,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852957\/revisions\/852971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}