Topic:
Country: Israel
Delegate Name: Annie Findlay
Israel provides universal healthcare coverage to citizens and permanent residents as part of its national health insurance law. Citizens are able to choose from 4 different non-profit healthcare plans. Israel has provided universal healthcare coverage since 1995, this means both citizens and residents of Israel both have a right to receive quality healthcare. The NHI (National Health Insurance) plans cannot reject applicants from healthcare. Therefore, everyone can fairly easily obtain healthcare (aside from a few populations such as soldiers and inmates because they receive healthcare from other sources than the 4 non-profit ones.
Here is a list of the services the NHI covers:
• hospital care
• primary and specialty care
• prescription drugs
• certain preventive services
• mental health care
• dental care for children and the elderly aged 75+
• diagnostic exams
• maternity care
• allied medical care (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nutrition, speech therapy)
some durable medical equipment (wheelchairs, orthopedic aids)
• limited coverage of palliative and hospice services
Israel ensures healthcare for all by providing discounts for elderly, chronically ill, and other vulnerable populations (such as veterans) and includes a safety net on health taxes, meaning, people with lower incomes (ranging around 60% of average income or less) pay a reduced health tax rate (3% compared to 5%)
Israel built isolated COVID-19 hospitals to care for the sick, and shifted resources to compensate for the low number of ICU beds. Many measures were taken against COVID-19, during its peak in 2020 such as, school closure, movement and travel restrictions, discontinuation of nonessential work, and a national curfew during Passover and Independence Day. Local curfews were set in place in neighborhoods and cities with high COVID-19 incidence and in Muslim populations during Ramadan (Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim year, during which strict fasting occurs from sunrise to sunset).
Due to the vaccination campaign an estimated half of Israel’s 9.4 million population have already had three vaccine doses and around 850,000 people have had four vaccine doses, because of Israel’s vaccination campaign in December 2020 they were able to administer almost 11.0 doses per 100 population.
Works Cited
Rosen, Bruce et al. “Israel’S Rapid Rollout Of Vaccinations For COVID-19”. Israel Journal Of Health Policy Research, vol 10, no. 1, 2021. Springer Science And Business Media LLC, doi:10.1186/s13584-021-00440-6. Accessed 23 Nov 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7454065/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-roll-out-adapted-covid-booster-this-month-official-says-2022-09-14/
Leshem, Eyal et al. “Buying Time With COVID-19 Outbreak Response, Israel”. Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol 26, no. 9, 2020, pp. 2251-2253. Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC), doi:10.3201/eid2609.201476. Accessed 23 Nov 2022. https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-021-00440-6
“Israel”. Commonwealthfund.Org, 2020, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/israel. Accessed 23 Nov 2022. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/israel
