No affordable medical aid plan for retirees

I hope the national health scheme will bring money-grabbers to their knees, writes Don Hart

André Lindique’s article “Budget carefully for medical” stresses the importance of retirees having adequate medical aid cover, and quite rightly so.

How is this possible when the money-hungry medical aid directors, in one fell swoop, deny hun- dreds – if not thousands – of retirees an affordable medical plan?

I am a state pensioner who, with the assistance of my family, can pay the R990 contribution to Discovery’s low-end Key Core Plus plan.

I pay the osteoarthritis and high blood pressure medicine that I need out of my pension as the plan does not cover it.

Discovery has now let us know that the zero to R13 050 income brackets used to calculate contributions will change next January.

Pensioners will be deemed to be earning not less than R13 050 per month, the income on which contributions will in future be calculated.

The minimum benefits I get for my R990 will now cost me R1 460 per month, this out of a pension of less than R 1 700 per month.

I can only hope that the proposed national health scheme will bring these greedy, unfeeling money-grabbers to their knees.