CAIRO: The Ministry of Finance has rejected the new medical insurance law proposed by the Ministry of Health for lack of financial resources, Dr Hamdy El Sayyed, head of the People's Assembly's (PA) health committee told Daily News Egypt. The finance ministry is set to adjust the new law to fit its budget and present it to the PA by March 2008, El Sayyed explained. If the ministry for any reason fails to submit it by that time, the PA s Health Committee will automatically pass the original draft of the law submitted by the ministry, he added. The PA s Health Committee made small amendments to the original draft filed by the Ministry of Health but had approved it in principle, he said. Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah, member in the PA affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), agreed with El-Sayyed, but said that the Ministry of Finance could not have taken that decision haphazardly. The new law, according to El Sayyed, is meant to raise the quality and services provided by all hospitals in Egypt and will cater to the needs and abilities of all social classes. The political opposition, however, believes that the new law - arguably one of most controversial laws of 2007 - simply aims to change the state medical insurance entity into a holding company, a step towards privatizing it. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Health, denouncing its proposed new medical insurance law. EIPR claims that it is unconstitutional for the prime minister to change a government entity to a holding company, a right preserved for the president of the republic. While the ministry insists that the authority responsible for medical insurance wasn't turned into a holding company, EIPR says this happened indirectly. The human rights organization told Daily News Egypt that the prime minister had transferred all medical insurance hospitals and clinics to a new holding company, leaving the original government entity empty of most of its services and facilities.
