Illustration
צילום: ויז'ואל/פוטוס
Half of Arabs don’t have supplementary insurance
Seventy-nine percent of Israelis enjoy supplementary health insurance, Knesset's Research and Information Center reports. Rate of insured differs substantially among Hebrew speakers (89 percent), Russian speakers (58 percent) and Arabic speakers (47 percent)
Fifty-three percent of Israeli Arabs don’t have supplementary health insurance, data presented by the Knesset's Research and Information Center for the year 2005 revealed.
According to the data, 79 percent of Israelis enjoy supplementary health insurance, but the rate of insured people differs substantially among Hebrew speakers (89 percent), Russian speakers (58 percent) and Arabic speakers (47 percent).
The data were presented on Tuesday to the Knesset's Labor, Welfare and Health Committee, which discussed the new supplementary health insurance offered by the Clalit and Maccabi health maintenance organizations. The new insurances offer medications that are not included in the health basket, including oncological medicines.
Knesset's Labor, Welfare and Health Committee (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
The data also revealed that 27 percent of Israelis have commercial medical insurance offered by private companies, apart from the HMO's supplementary insurance. About one-third of people aged 65 and older don’t enjoy supplementary health insurance, compared to 16 percent among people aged 45 to 64.
Another figure showed that the lower the level of education, the lower the rate of people insured. For example, 36 percent of Israelis with elementary education don’t have supplementary health insurance. In addition, a positive correlation was found between socioeconomic status and the rate of people insured.
Another worrying figure presented was that one-quarter of chronic patients don’t have supplementary health insurance.
