The Feasibility of the Proposed National Health Insurance Project in South AfricaThe National Health Insurance (NHI) is an insurance scheme launched on Friday 12 August 2011 in South Africa, which aims to introduce an innovative healthcare financing system that will only benefit South African health outcomes. The main goal of the NHI is not to build more hospitals across the country, but to improve access to them. The policy aims to “ensure that everyone has access to appropriate, effective and quality health services” – (Department: Health Repulic of South Africa, 2011), nationally. The NHI is expected to be implemented slowly over the next 14 years (currently, the next 11 years) and will improve service delivery in the country's public health system. The government currently funds the public health sector to the tune of 8.5%. (with 4.1% allocated to the private sector and 4.2% to the public health sector) of the GDP allocated to health in South Africa. It therefore ranks 47th out of 188 countries in terms of health, which is quite good, financially speaking, compared to a small country like Qatar, with an amount of 1.9% of annual GDP spent on health. - (World Bank, 2014). However, this spending is relatively small compared to the 17.9% the United States spends on its country's health. Additionally, the life expectancy of the average citizen in the United States is 78.64 years, in Qatar it is 78.25 years, and in South Africa it is 52.64 years. It can therefore be concluded, from the above results, that although Qatar spends 1.9% of its GDP on health, its health system is used effectively and benefits its citizens; they show ingenuity when ...... middle of paper ......are sectors. Both from an institutional and financial point of view, we can see that INSA policy is detached from the realities of the country's health systems. If the NHI is implemented, along with inflation, healthcare costs will increase significantly. This could, in turn, have a negative impact on our economy. There are benefits to this, however: improving the state of healthcare in the country, which could essentially lead to a healthier population and workforce. However, the negative aspects of the NHI are more striking than the positive aspects. With limited resources, only a certain amount of health care can actually be provided. We all agree that the current healthcare system needs to change radically. “The INSA Green Paper appears to be moving in the right direction, but many key features are not addressed correctly” - (Econex, 2011).