Israeli Agreement On Health Care Costs

A major step towards Israel's National Health Insurance Law, due to be implemented January 1, is a new agreement between Health Minister Ephraim Sneh and Finance Minister Avraham Shohat on the cost of the basket of health care services for 1995.

This says that total resources for funding the basket will be NI$12.3 billion ($4.1 billion), based on costs of services in 1994 and an extra NI$225 million ($75 million) for innovations and new drugs. The ministers also agreed that to increase sources for funding the basket, the four sick funds must make savings of NI$300 million. Hospitals will have to absorb the population rise, which is 2.5% per annum.

Director-general of the Ministry of Health Mordechai Shani said budgeting for new medical innovations is essential, "otherwise, the introduction of new antibiotics will be prevented, which is significant in the light of the resistance shown to existing drugs and the increase in the morbidity rate from infectious diseases." This would prevent the introduction of new drugs or indications, he said, eg Bristol-Myers Squibb's Taxol (paclitaxel), which has recently had its indications extended to include breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer. "The cost of this drug alone introduced onto the market is of the order of NI$70-NI$80 million," he said.