ACRI, as part of a coalition of 14 civil-society organizations, in collaboration with Knesset Member Haim Oron won an important victory on June 30 when a draft bill to increase the universal basket of services automatically by 2% each year was passed in its first reading in the Knesset. The bill, if legislated, will save the lives of thousands of Israelis, for whom life-saving services and medications have become unattainable with the proliferation of supplementary health insurance. In recent years, these “premium” insurance plans – available at extra cost – have diminished the services and medications available through the universal basket of services, available to all Israelis.
Between 1996 and 2005, the universal basket of services has eroded by 44%, leaving out many essential medications. When the basket has been increased in recent years, it has been by small amounts and after long and hard-fought battles by civil-society and patient-advocacy groups. Each year, a professional committee decides which new medicines will be introduced into the universal basket, but the committee’s budget is too small, and the Finance Ministry often intervenes in a way that diminishes the final product. The proposed legislation would guarantee that critical medications and new technologies will be included in the basket and be made available to all Israelis, regardless of the Ministry’s intervention.
This victory is the latest in a series of successes for ACRI’s Right to Health Project, which aims to ensure equitable access to health-care for all Israelis. In December 2007, the Knesset approved an arrangement between the Ministries of Health and Finance that prevents supplementary insurance plans from including life-saving drugs and other essential treatments.
