RHAP launches Health Tax Alliance to help save the public health system
South Africa spends a significant amount of public health resources treating diseases caused by smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages and cool drinks.
If the government significantly raised the taxes on these products, this would increase their price, making them more expensive. And this in turn will result in a drop in its consumption and an increase in the revenue collected from these products.
But it would also result in a drop in the disease burden that the health system needs to treat.
Until now though, the government has not increased the taxes on these products significantly and only marginally in line with inflation.
This could all change with the launch of the Health Tax Alliance. The alliance is a group of public health advocates working in these sectors which will effectively combine their efforts across the sectors to collectively drive calls to the government for increases for health taxes.
The alliance was launched in Cape Town last week.
As part of the launch of the alliance, public health researchers and advocates working in tobacco control, alcohol control and sugar sectors gathered to discuss the need for a co-ordinated effort to encourage calls for increases in health taxes.
Globally, health taxes which are levied on products that have a negative public health impact like tobacco sugar and alcohol, have been mooted as a mechanism that saves lives, prevents disease and generates revenue. In South Africa, however, the health taxes currently imposed on these products have remained inflation-based and not in line with calls by global health bodies like the World Health Organisation.
The two-day symposium included an address by former deputy director general in the National Department of Health, Dr Yogan Pillay, as well as Dr Chengetai Dare and Yolanda Radu from Priceless SA, Dr Nicole Vellios from UCT’s Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies researchers Rashaad Amra and Thoko Madonko.
Pillay noted that there were inadequate responses to the commercial determinants of health, which are strategies, practises and pathways that commercial actions undermine health and create inequities.
He highlighted the need to reorientate societies and build trust and solidarity. Raising taxes was just part of the solution to a healthy society, he noted.
As part of the discussions, participants heard about various studies that have been conducted and initiatives that have launched showing the impact of alcohol, tobacco and sugar. These products all lead to the increase of non-communicable diseases in the health system including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases.
Dare, for example, highlighted how the direct cost of diabetes to South Africa’s health system is R2.7 billion and that is only for those patients who are diagnosed. This is estimated to increase to R35 billion by 2030.
Extending the health promotion levy on sugar sweetened beverages to include juices could cut more than 150 000 cases of diabetes.
Going forward the alliance will call for increases in health taxes in an attempt to save the public health system the cost of the burden of these diseases. South Africa is yet to see an amalgamated alliance that can advocate for these taxes collectively.
The alliance will include the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance, the Treatment Action Campaign, Priceless SA, the Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids, the National Council Against Smoking, the Public Health Association of South Africa, the SA Medical Association, the South African National Aids Council and the TB Accountability Consortium.
Speaking at the launch RHAP executive director Russell Rensburg said: “Tobacco sugar and alcohol cost the South African health system a significant amount of money.”
He added: “The direct and indirect costs cannot be denied. Something must be done to navigate these costs and save the ailing public healthcare system.”
RHAP is one of the organisations driving the alliance.