- South Africa's schemes have proposed subsidising people who rely on public healthcare and don't have medical aid.
- The medical aids have said the vaccinations could be funded through single exit price (SEP) mechanism, which would enable them to pay the extra government each dose, with the remaining funds being used for public sector patients.
- Momentum will provide the vaccine to its 100 000 members of the Health4Me affordable healthcare product aimed at employed but uninsured people.
Momentum Health Solutions says it will cover the Covid-19 vaccination cost for 100 000 members of its low-cost health insurance product, in addition to the more than two million medical aid members it administers.
The scheme's announcement comes the government readies itself to begin rolling out the vaccine in the week. South Africa's schemes have proposed subsidising people who rely on public healthcare and don't have medical aid.
The country has a population of 8.9 million people covered by medical insurance who will all receive the vaccine as part of their scheme benefits, and for each member the schemes’ plan to vaccinate an uninsured person.
However, this leaves most of the country's 59 million population to the government to vaccinate, which may hamper its plans to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating 67%.
The government plans to vaccinate 40 million people by the end of this year, by providing the jab to 31 000 people a day, at an estimated cost of R20 billion.
The medical aids have said the vaccinations could be funded through single exit price (SEP) mechanism, which would enable them to pay the extra government each dose, with the remaining funds being used for public sector patients.
The SEP has a schedule of fees that list the maximum price that medicine can be charged at and could be made up of the cost of the vaccine, its storage and distribution.
On Friday, head of marketing and sales at Momentum Health Damian McHugh said the company would provide the vaccine to its 100 000 members of the Health4Me affordable healthcare product aimed at employed but uninsured people.
"We need to be able to look broader than just the medical scheme market, there are other people who are covered through insurance solutions and we need to be able to cover them and we feel that this is going to be a benefit that expands our level of cover to a few more people without creating a burden on the state or employer groups," said McHugh in a media briefing.
He explained that the Health4Me vaccinations will be funded by through Momentum's insurance business, since members do not fall under the scheme as per regulations.
"We just feel that as a responsible South African healthcare provider, our solutions need to be able to cover for the pandemic. So, we are going to be adding cover to this solution’s day-to-day component, so that all members who are part of this insurance pool within the Momentum stable will have access to the vaccine," McHugh said.
But Health4Me won't subsidise people using state facilities, since its premiums are too low to cover them. McHugh said although corporates will also have access to vaccine through Health4Me, they would not be able to "jump" the vaccination queue and healthcare workers will take priority for the first round of jabs, followed by high-risk members and the rest of its members.
Momentum Health administers more than 2 million lives for its own members, as well as other schemes.
