BGU Health Policy Expert Helps Diagnose Israel’s Healthcare System’s Woes
BGU Health Policy Expert Helps Diagnose Israel’s Healthcare System’s Woes
September 19, 2011
Thousands of Israeli doctors spent the last four months engaged in a nationwide strike to protest their wages and working hours.
Now that the strike is over, Israelis are debating whether a raise in wages and shorter workdays can offset the deeper problems plaguing their country’s socialized health system.
With roots dating back to the British Mandate, Israel has traditionally offered universal health care. But in the mid-1990s demand grew for the many advantages of private healthcare and Israel’s HMOs, kupot holim, began to sell supplementary health insurance. That led to a whole other set of problems.
Israel’s health system is “an old horse,” and the strikes exposed severe structural deficiencies in the health system, says Prof. Dov Chernichovsky, a professor of health policy and economics at BGU.
“We have an excellent system with a lot of good manpower, but we’re losing ground in its funding and organization.”
Chernichovsky also chairs the health policy program at the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel.
Read more >>
Stories Like This
