Medical aids should question costs

I make reference to the bold headline to an article by Slindile Khanyile in the Business Report of Monday, December 20, 2010, which read: “Regulator slams 2011 medical aid increases”.

A month ago I spent just over 20 minutes in the theatre of Claremont Hospital for a surgeon to remove a basal cell carcinoma from my left forearm.

The cost for this procedure came to R6 064.69. The hospital debited this amount to my medical aid, Medshield, which paid the full total within 48 hours without any questions asked.

I wrote to the hospital manager of Claremont Hospital, stating that I find their charges ridiculously out of proportion to what the surgeon charged.

The reply I received from the hospital, however, is quite simply incredible: “On investigation it was confirmed that the theatre and stock charges were fully within the recognised guidelines of the medical aid and were accepted as correct.”

I wrote to Medshield addressing my letter to the principal medical officer, Duduza Khosana. I received no written reply or explanation as she was on leave.

The computer generated reply read: “For your complaint regarding tariff amount charged by doctors or hospital, kindly contact the Board of Healthcare Funders.”

In summary, it would seem that one party hides behind the other, but no one seems prepared to tackle the question at hand, the actual costs versus the claimed amounts, or to negotiate with the hospitals for realistic tariffs.

This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why medical aids increase their contribution amounts well above the inflation rate every year.

Hans D Busse

TOKAI

New labour law will make jobs dwindle

Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant must be smoking some leaves or something stronger if she is seriously considering her ill-conceived amendments to the existing labour laws, which are already crazily stupid and are not creating jobs but actually losing them.

I am a successful entrepreneur, having started my own business at the age of eight. In the late 1940s my brother and I would pick fruit and sell them to the locals in the squatter camps.

We grew and sold mielies, later we sold bunches of flowers to people in Ferndale, Randburg. In later years we sold lamp stands which I had made. Minister Oliphant should also be aware that I did not grow up privileged.

In fact I grew up in a two-roomed shack with a corrugated iron roof, no ceiling and a bare concrete floor. There was no running water, toilet or bathroom and no electricity. It accommodated seven people, but we did supply the hundreds of squatters with free water from our well and hand water pump.

Because of Oliphant’s ridiculous labour laws, I have now decided to close down my construction company which has been in operation for over 30 years, having employed many people who, in turn, supported hundreds of dependents. I sincerely hope that the minister can now employ all the people I have had to retrench while the government supports people by means of grants instead of allowing them to get off their butts. Encourage and support them to start their own businesses otherwise there will be no hope for South Africa.

ERIC CT MARITZ

VIA E-MAIL

‘Correctness’ may sink country’s education

The juxtaposition of articles by Donwald Pressly starkly demonstrate the destructive and moronic levels of political correctness at institutions such as the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

On the one hand we are told that whites withholding R10 million in municipal fees is “politically divisive”. On the other hand we learn that there is R65 billion in municipal fees outstanding across South Africa.

Readers should note that in the first case we are talking millions and in the second case billions.

It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the bulk of this latter huge amount is owed by communities that are not white, so we are not talking “division”, we are talking cataclysm. If this is the quality of the research coming out of the UWC, then education in this country is doomed

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Anton Kleinschmidt

VIA E-MAIL

Learn from BAA chief about service delivery

The British Airports Authority’s (BAA’s) chief executive, Colin Matthews, has announced he will not take his annual bonus on the grounds that he is responsible for the chaos at Heathrow Airport (Business Report, December 23).

“It’s unacceptable that passengers can't get to where they want to be,” he said. It was the decent and proper response.

Now let it be an example to the many senior public servants and heads of parastatals in South Africa who fail to deliver on their portfolios. It would be the honourable thing for them to do, to decline their bonuses and avoid the excuse route for their failures.

In addition, it would generate some respect for these individuals replacing the current scorn around their understanding of what “delivery” means.

It is a reminder that a bonus should relate to the excellence of the job done and is not simply another way of increasing the remuneration for a job.

Ron Legg

VIA E-MAIL

Facebook investment creating a bubble

Lately there has been a lot of excitement around the $50 billion (R340.5bn) valuation of the Facebook company.

Facebook now has a valuation more than a company such as Boeing. Boeing has more than 159 000 people working for it, and in the 2008 financial year generated revenues of $60bn and had an operating income of $4 billion. It really begs the question, why has Goldman Sachs seen fit to place a $50bn valuation of Facebook, a company that employs only 2 000 people, generating estimated revenues of $1bn?

To date, Facebook has not made a notable profit. It is more than likely that it will not do so in the near future. As the number of users grows, so too will its costs in line with its revenue. Has Goldman Sachs created a Facebook bubble?

Farryl singh

Cape town

Pay parity encourages mediocrity at work

The article in Business Report on Friday, December 17, 2010, “Olifant tables tighter employment laws” refers.

It is always good for South Africans to be in line with International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards. However, the tightening of our labour laws is certainly not in line with the ILO. Employment equity cannot be said to be part of international labour law and pay parity between employees doing substantially the same work is not sustainable. What happens if one employee works a lot harder than another? Pay parity celebrates mediocrity and encourages the lowest common denominator as opposed to job excellence.

The interference with labour broking merely encourages mechanisation as opposed to job creation and although there was an outright ban on labour brokers in Namibia, the courts quickly overturned this. It would be useful to have a new definition of employer and employee to give greater security to employment relations, but our legislation must be careful not to stifle small businesses, which are at the forefront of job creation.

Short-term contracts are always useful when an employer has a window of opportunity to create employment. The legislative interference would make any employer think twice before employing someone. This short-term contract creates the psychological advantage for both parties. Many employers are encouraged to employ someone and it is explained to them that the liability is for a short period only, allowing them time to investigate whether the position is viable.

MICHAEL BAGRAIM

HIGHLANDS ESTATE, CAPE TOWN

The rights of workers are very fragile

In previous correspondence to Business Report, Michael Bagraim took issue with the Woolworths Franchise Association’s assertion that the acquisition of the franchised stores by Woolworths would have an adverse effect on jobs, as reported by Ann Crotty (“Merging firms must justify job losses”, December 13, 2010).

I disagree with Bagraim. In an ideal world – viewed from Bagraim’s legal labour consultancy – workers’ rights are indeed protected by our world class labour legislation, but in reality those rights can be pretty fragile.

Plenty of jobs are lost after company takeovers when the dominant company starts culling its now bloated labour force. Many subsequently retrenched employees will indeed successfully claim their jobs back or sue for damages in the superbly run offices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Retrenched employees will likely receive a few months’ severance and when that dries up, they are once again a work seeker, indeed swelling the already considerable ranks of the unemployed.

That is why the Competition Commission has ruled that there must be a two-year moratorium on worker retrenchments in the proposed Metropolitan and Momentum “merger”.

The situation is further aggravated because many major supermarket chains are large practitioners of worker casualisation, leaving staff vulnerable.

Such workers find it difficult to be re-employed in the limited market of the big five supermarket chains.

Elton Smith-Ratcliffe.

Boksburg