The Lavi rights organization has turned to Health Minister Yaakov Litzman to stop funding treatment for foreigners and illegals (infiltrators), who cost the nation’s health system 76 million shekels annually them until their costs are covered.
Organization officials explain to Litzman “the situation is neither proportionate nor fair, nor is it acceptable in enlightened countries. “There is no dispute over the need to treat these patients, but on the other hand there is no justification for subsidizing medical treatments at huge sums without payment from the infiltrators and foreigners”.
“The citizens of Israel pay the best of their money for the medical treatment they receive, and the little they receive as part of the health basket is actually funded through tax payments,” they add.
The Knesset over recent years has decided infiltrators and foreigners would be treated as are all residents of Israel. Most of the money, 36 million shekels, is spend by the state for hospital stays for infiltrators and foreign aliens treated and the remainder for the various medical facilities and centers around the nation treat them.
“The health basket for subsidizing medicines for Israeli citizens suffers from severe budgetary distress, and hundreds of drugs, including life-saving drugs, have not entered the last basket of medicines and are not subsidized by the Ministry of Health. Ministry of Health Medical treatments about NIS 76 million for foreigners and infiltrators,” the organization reports.
“Despite the obvious need to provide medical treatment to infiltrators, there is no justification for the State of Israel to subsidize medical treatment for them, preferring to subsidize medical treatments for infiltrators over subsidizing life-saving medicines to Israeli citizens.”
They also wonder why “basic medicines for us and our children will save us from providing free service to infiltrators?” And hope that Minister Litzman will put an end to lawlessness in the field.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
Do you mean people who enter as tourists? Shouldn’t the standard be whether their home country reciprocates and treats Israeli tourists for free (some do, some don’t)? Presumably this is about poor illegal, not rich ones (i.e. rich tourists). If these are illegal workers, there seems to be a good public policy reason to include them. Remember that in countries with universal mandatory health care, the government sponsored care tends to crowd out non-state care for all but the very rich, so if Israelis want to hire foreign workers they should at least provide them with the same medical care that poor Israeli workers are eligible for (note that in the US, illegal aliens get employer provided health care the same as citizens – employment being more important than nationality).