13/10/2023
HEALTH, JOBS, TAXES and SKILLS
Auditor general has reported on the abysmal state of affairs in the National and Provincial Departments of Health for the 2022 / 2023 financial year.
Qualified audits were the order of the day, yet again.
Contingent liabilities for medico-legal claims for mishaps at State Hospitals and Clinics are north of R70 billion (R70 000 000 000,00).
Of course, the bureaucrats and ANC cadres at this department offer glib words about a “median term strategic framework” to reduce the Health Department’s contingent liabilities.
But they do not have the foggiest clue.
Solution is to employ experienced, well trained medical doctors and qualified nurses in sufficient numbers, replace defective diagnostic equipment and dump the bulk of layers of useless deployed cadres/clueless apparatchiks. This will not happen because the budgets have been captured.
In the interim Cyril Ramaphosa refuses to release damning reports on corruption probes into State Health.
South Africans are fully aware of the dire status of state hospitals.
State Health is beyond redemption. Their incompetence is unaffordable to the nation.
Yet the ANC is hell-bent on forcing more state health care down the throats of South Africans. They call it NHI (National Health Insurance), the so called universal health care, a sop to die-hard communists.
ANC honchos are in denial about the quantum of anticipated medicolegal contingent liabilities should NHI become a reality.
They cannot explain who will fill health professional posts. The mere mention of the possibility of more state healthcare has prompted doctors to leave in droves.
The solution is of course to get the state out of health care.
ANC and EFF cannot be trusted with the health of individual South Africans.
Free Democrats of South Africa propose the establishment of a medical aid for every citizen, one comprehensive medical and plan, from birth to death, funded by a Health Insurance Fund (HIF).
This HIF, for its part, is funded by a payroll deduction of between 3 – 5 % and all existing sin taxes (to***co, alcohol, sugar, carbon and gambling taxes). Settlement fee imposed on all foreigners, men, women and children, is used to fund the medical aid of unemployed South Africans.
State clinics, state hospitals and unused state land and buildings should be sold to the private health care industry. Proceeds from these sales could go some way towards redeeming South Africa’s gargantuan sovereign debt of over 5 trillion rand (R5 000 000 000 000,00), debt incurred for the most to fund the ANC gravy train.
All hospitals and clinics should be operated and managed by the private health care industry.
Medical aids should be administered by a much reformed private medical aid industry whose role will be that of administrators only.
The medical aid industry is in desperate need of major reforms. We should get rid of all the mickey mouse medical aid plans which rip off members and their beneficiaries.
Parliament should exercise direct oversight over the Health Insurance Fund and set the fees of hospitals, doctors, surgeons, physiotherapists, dentists, psychologists etc.
Under our proposal, as the bulk of funding for private health care is envisaged to come from payroll deductions, it stands to reason that South Africa can only afford private health care for all once the current stratospheric levels of unemployment have been addressed and reversed (more jobs equal more payrolls).
Free Democrats propose substantial tax reductions to attract local and foreign capital investment, absolutely essential for job creation.
South Africans by now are fully aware that the state and bloviating career politicians do not create jobs. Investors create jobs.
ANC has destroyed millions of jobs in South Africa.
Reduce personal income tax to 35 %, company tax to 15 % and dividend taxes down to 10 %. Reduce death taxes. Increase the primary rebate to R300 000, meaning those who earn less that 300k per year should not pay personal income tax.
Lower taxes should be coupled with scrapping of all restrictive and race based labour laws and drastic reduction in red tape, all to encourage business activity (big and small) and massive capital investment.
National / community service (not military service) for one to two years should be expanded to include all university and college graduates.
All financial management and accounting graduates should be seconded to municipalities and city councils where financial know how and administrative skills are in desperate short supply. This guarantees immediate employment upon graduation. For too long the youth of South Africa and their employment prospects have been neglected.
Settlement fee of R100 000,00 – R500 000,00 should be imposed on all foreigners, every man, woman and child, new and old arrivals. Those who cannot or would not pay should leave. Employers who pay for the settlement fee of essential foreign workers should be allowed to fully deduct this as a business expense.
Boost home ownership. All property transfer costs, insurance costs, interest on bonds and loans, costs of energy installations, security cost, maintenance expenses, all salaries and wages of domestic workers and gardeners and all paid up utility bills should be deductible from personal income tax.
South Africa should move away from rewarding incompetence, political allegiance and party loyalty. Recognition of merit and hard work is way overdue.
Reward saving, frugality, hard work, merit and excellence. Stop punishing hard work with punitive taxes.
Stop rewarding indolent, lazy sloths with guaranteed handouts and multiple grants. South Africans know that the ANC continuously incentivize unemployment, yet for the death of them they cannot fathom why unemployment remains stubbornly high.
A voluntary company/owner equity participation programme should be introduced for meritorious employees. This should replace BEE which is simply corruption by another name.
A free market driven South African economy will create jobs and bring prosperity all around, provided that the country can attract the necessary skills, currently in desperate short supply, especially IT, professional and artisan skills.
Many qualified and experienced South Africans have left these shores to escape the gross incompetence of the ANC.
South Africans living abroad should be tax incentivised to return. Graduate professionals, artisans, IT specialists etc should be given a 3 – 5 year exemption from paying personal income tax after return to South Africa.
The elections of 2024 present South Africans with a stark choice:
Vote ANC/EFF for more incompetence, NHI, expanded state health care (and death before your time), more unemployment, more loans from China, more sovereign debt, more corruption, failed policies and economic decline OR
Do the sensible:
VOTE FOR
-merit and excellence,
-a medical aid, fully funded up front,
-personal choice of medical practitioner,
-the elderly, pensioners, your mother, your father, grandmother or grandfather, for they need decent healthcare more than most,
-a free market economy,
-a parliament that will spend much less and spend hard earned tax revenue miserly and prudently,
-lower taxes,
-the end to punitive taxes on hard work,
-job creation,
-career opportunities for graduates and the youth,
-more home owners,
-more shareholders and
-a fairer society.
Nothing is more important than your health. Look after it. Nurture it. Vote for it.
Dr J Reid
Neurologist
Cape Town
Free Democrats of South Africa
