Egypt's comprehensive healthcare insurance system does not set a spending cap on providing medical services to beneficiaries, finance minister Mohamed Maait said on Monday. In press statements during the inauguration of the temporary headquarters of the General Authority for Health Insurance, Maait said the system was the pillar to reforming the country's medical sector. He said the state was keen on sustaining the solvency of the system, to allow it to have sufficient flexibility to keep pace with any changes and ensure its continuity with high efficiency, especially that actuarial studies would be held every four years to review financial sustainability. Maait, who is also the chairman of the authority, elaborated that the state's public treasury bore one-quarter of the planned costs to finance the system, with two-quarters of the cost shouldered by subscriptions, and the last quarter provided through other sources of funding. The new system, which aims to offer better health services to citizens, was first implemented in Port Said in July as a pilot stage. It also saw a fresh start in Ismailia. The new system will cover all governorates by 2032, with the second phase of implementation kicking off between 2021 and 2023 to cover Luxor, Matrouh, the Red Sea, Qena and Aswan. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has put health and education reforms on top of his agenda.
