CAIRO: In the sixth and final meeting of the People's Assembly's health committee on Sunday, Health Minister Hatem El Gabaly announced that the new medical insurance law will be implemented in Sohag, Damietta and Suez governorates in 2010. Sources at the ministry who preferred to remain anonymous told Daily News Egypt that these three governorates were chosen on a trial basis to test the law because they do not suffer high poverty rates. The new law would require citizens to pay 25 percent of the total treatment bill as well as one-third of the cost of the prescription, a point which pharmacists objected to during the meeting. But Minister El Gabaly assured that citizens suffering critical health and financial conditions will be exempt from paying any fees for treatment administered at public hospitals. "The poor or limited income brackets will not pay for any service offered by medical insurance hospitals, he said. El Gabaly said that implementing the law will require a budget of LE 7 billion which will be finalized in November following coordination with the Ministry of Finance and the Medical Insurance Authority. Farid Ismail, member of the health committee, told Daily News Egypt that the meeting covered controversial issues about the law like articles stipulating that citizen would not receive treatment in medical insurance hospital if they did not pay their annual subscription fee. "In critical cases where the patient cannot afford the annual subscription, does that mean he would be deprived of treatment? The Egyptian constitution states that medical treatment is available to all citizens, said Ismail. He added that some attendees suggested that citizens with chronic diseases like high blood pressure, cancer and Hepatitis C should be exempt from paying any fees. Ismail also said that one of the most important points of debate was the decision to separate the financial management of medical insurance hospitals from the service management. "We all agreed on the need to make that split, he said. "This will help improve the service quality and the caliber of doctors, nurses and equipment to amend the low-quality services medical insurance hospitals have been offering. However Mahmoud Abdel Maksoud, secretary-general of the Pharmacists' Syndicate, objected to the law. He told Daily News Egypt that the law is unfair to citizens with limited income. "The subscription fees are too high in relation to these people's monthly income, said Abdel Maksoud. He added that unifying the price of medicine in all pharmacies was another point of contention. "The ministry does not want to standardize the price of medicine in all pharmacies, which will negatively affect private pharmacies that do not belong to the medical insurance association, said Abdel Maksoud. He explained that medical insurance pharmacies offer special discounts to for citizens who receive treatment in medical insurance hospitals. In a previous interview with the Daily News Egypt, president of the Doctor's Syndicate and head of the PA's health committee Dr. Hamdy El Sayed said the draft law would oblige the government to cover the insurance of the whole population. Medical insurance used to cover only 52 percent of the population . but [under] the new law, the whole population will be covered, said El Sayed.
