For second year in a row, Israel Medical Association establishes a "public forum for updating the basket of health services."
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHpills 88(photo credit: )
The Israel Medical Association has, for the second year in a row, established a "public forum for updating the basket of health services" in competition with the official Health Ministry-appointed committee charged to recommend a priority list of medical technologies subsidized by the government.
When Health Minister Ya'acov Ben-Yizri appointed a newer, smaller basket committee in 2007, IMA chairman Dr. Yoram Blachar refused to serve and said it was "not representative," had too many Treasury officials and lacked representatives of patient groups.
The forum named by the IMA last year was headed by retired Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner and included many leading medical experts. Meeting during the same period as the official basket committee and making its recommendations before it, the forum put pressure on the basket committee to demand from the government a larger increase to the basket. The official basket committee has already held four meetings - much earlier than last year, as the members were then appointed several months late, and funding of new medications during the first two months of 2008 was struck off the state budget by the Treasury.
The IMA suddenly announced a second forum on Tuesday; Prof. Alex Battler and Prof. Haim Bitterman will be its chairmen, and representatives of patients' groups will be included. The IMA said the forum's deliberations would begin in November and that its discussions would be "transparent and open to the public."
The forum will propose NIS 450 million of medical technologies for addition to the 2009 basket.
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