This study examines trends in ill-health status, medical aid coverage and public health
care facility utilisation across a spectrum of socio-demographic variables, using populationweighted
General Household Surveys (GHS) covering the years 2004-2014. As there are few
obvious patterns in the raw health variables’ time series, the analysis, which is descriptive
in nature, relies upon both parametric and nonparametric analysis to smooth the time
series in order to outline a few general trends. Over time, medical aid coverage and the
general population’s ‘preference’ for public health care decreased by 0.2% and 0.1% per
year, respectively, while reports of ill-health status increased by 0.4% annually. Moreover,
the probability that an individual, who is covered by a medical aid scheme, would utilize
public health care decreased by 44%.