As South Africa grapples with how to implement “universal health service” via the National Health Insurance, a specialist advises more pragmatism and less ideology.

Just as the apartheid regime fed it’s supporters with horror stories about marauding ‘Reds’ out to confiscate everything privately owned, so some post-apartheid ANC leaders have made the private sector synonymous with everything that is greedy and selfish.

Like most things, the truth is often found somewhere in between, which is why the “triple Ps” – public-private partnerships – can be effective in delivering services by harnessing the public sector’s mandate to deliver services to all with private sector’s often more efficient delivery mechanisms….more