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The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes it is essential that the government allow for a full, public and transparent discussion of its planned National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. As things stand, it appears that the ANC is trying to force through its implementation by avoiding public debate on the matter.

In this regard and of particular importance to an open and transparent legislative process the DA calls on the Minister of Health to release immediately to the public the latest documentation produced by the task team responsible for developing the plan, which remain under wraps, despite the suggestion from some quarters that the ANC wants to implement this plan within a year.

Furthermore, despite the fact that the NHI will define health care into the future, and will affect every single South African, there are no parliamentary health committee meetings scheduled yet to discuss this. There must be more room for public input and the DA will be writing to the committee chair to request the urgent scheduling of meetings to take the discussion further, and in addition to request that the Minister be invited to present the case for the NHI to the committee and that public hearings be held.

Over the years that the NHI has been part of the ANC's agenda, it has been covered in a cloak of secrecy. Documents are produced internally, with no expert consultation, and anyone outside of government has struggled to obtain any information on what the Department's latest plans are. There has been no official public discussion about this issue and the government seems to be doing everything in its power to keep the debate under wraps.

The result is that although massive amounts of public money will be involved - the latest leaked information is R100 billion a year in additional funding - the impression is being created that the public is irrelevant. Taxpayers will simply be expected to pay more, while the government continues to deal with none of the fundamental problems of quality affecting health care today.

Often the only concrete information coming out of the process is from people such as health economist Alex van den Heever, who have removed themselves from the process because of their concerns about it.