Soaring medical costs will give Joe Soap another knock. Photo: Melkbos.net

Life is going to become even harder for the ordinary South African next year. Businesstech.co.za reports that medical scheme giant Discovery Health has announced that its premiums will increase between 7.8% and 14.9%.

The increases are as follow:

Executive and Comprehensive plans are set to increase by 11.9%
The Coastal Core plan will increase by 14.9%
The Coastal Saver plan will increase by 7.8%
All other plans will increase by 9.9%

Businesstech.co.za writes: “The group said that the entire industry has seen increased use over the past year, and warned that policies would have to be revised to keep the schemes sustainable. According to a note by Global Credit Ratings last week, open medical schemes saw an overall operating deficit in 2015 due to a high rate of claims, and were forced to dip into their reserves to keep the system going. Claims in 2016 are expected to be even higher, hence the steep increase seen in Discovery.” Melkbos.net’s comment on this: this is simply sickening.

The increases will come into effect in January 2017. Let’s start tightening our belts in advance.