Knesset Leumit Health Fund and Kupat Cholim Meuchedet will
not merge into a single health fund. An announcement to this
effect was released on Monday, but it was a trial balloon by
Knesset Finance Committee chairman and former Leumit Health
Fund chairman Abraham Hirchson. Hirchson resigned from Leumit
Health Fund six months ago.
On Tuesday, a Meuchedet spokesman announced that there had
been no negotiations. The spokesman said that the idea had
been suggested by the Finance Ministry and by Hirschson, but
that they would not even consider it without prior guarantees
from the Finance Ministry to cover all of Leumit's deficits
and that the level of services of Meuchedet members would not
decline.
Leumit Health Fund currently has 700,000 members, and
hundreds of branches around Israel. Kupat Holim Meuchedet has
740,000 members, but only a few dozen branches. Both health
funds have a strong presence in the chareidi community.
Leumit Health Fund was once owned by the Likud, and it
operates in the classic Israeli style of staff doctors in
clinics. Meuchedet generally reaches arrangements with
private doctors working in their own clinics.
Leumit Health Fund had a crisis in 2002, finishing the year
with a NIS 900 million deficit. Leumit asked the Ministry of
Finance for hundreds of millions of shekels in aid, but no
money has been offered so far. Given the state of the
government's finances, none is likely to be offered.
Leumit was criticized by the State Comptroller for opening
many small and expensive clinics. It has cut expenses in the
past two years, and is expected to nearly break even in 2003,
with an operating deficit of only NIS 30 million, compared
with its NIS 200 million deficit in 2001.
Kupat Holim Meuchedet is considered the most stable of
Israel's funds, breaking even most years.
The Ministry of Health said that Maccabi would break even in
2003, while Clalit would have a NIS 600 million deficit.
