Center for the Defence of the Individual - Following HaMoked’s petition: reimbursements are now given to Palestinians who recently received Israeli status pursuant to the Minister of Interior’s decision, and earlier on registered with an HMO under the new health regulations
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
20.11.2017

Following HaMoked’s petition: reimbursements are now given to Palestinians who recently received Israeli status pursuant to the Minister of Interior’s decision, and earlier on registered with an HMO under the new health regulations

On December 1, 2016, HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) against the application of the expensive new health insurance arrangement to Palestinians who had recently received or were soon to receive Israeli status – pursuant to the decision of the Minister of Interior – and with it national health insurance coverage. This group of people were required under the new health regulations to join the expensive arrangement, although it was intended to provide for people living in Israel with nothing but stay permits. HaMoked asked the court to order the Ministry of Health to exempt this group from payment under the regulations and to order the HMOs (health funds, Kupot Holim) to reimburse those who already paid. Earlier on, following HaMoked’s intervention, the Minister of Health decided to exempt from the arrangement those belonging to the group about to receive status, who had not joined at that time one of the HMOs in the framework of the new regulations.

In its response to the petition, submitted April 6, 2017, the state announced that “it has been decided on an ex gratia basis, with regards to the members of the population concerned… who briefly benefited from the national health insurance services pursuant to the regulations until their status upgrade, that they shall be reimbursed for/relatively exempted from the payment required under the regulations, according to the period of time they were insured”.

In its updating notice of November 16, 2017, the state informed the court about the progress of the reimbursement process, according to information received from the HMOs: one HMO – Maccabi Healthcare Services – already reimbursed all those entitled; reimbursements by two other HMOs – Claltit and Meuhedet – were still underway; Leumit was to begin the reimbursing process only in March 2018, due to technical issues.

Therefore, the petition was deleted at the parties consent on November 19, 2017.