במסגרת הפרויקט של "כלכליסט" גילה אמיר ריינר שהוא משלם דמי ניהול גבוהים מכפי שסיכם עם חברת הביטוח. אחרי שהתעקש ופעל, הוא זכה למכתב ובו אישור להנחה, גם רטרואקטיבית: "זה אפשרי להשיג
The public's spending on private health insurance is growing three times faster than the OECD average, while increasingly finding public health services insufficient.
Israelis' expenditure on private health insurance is growing three times as fast as the OECD average, the Health Ministry found.
The report, which is due to be presented today, found that combined spending on the health maintenance organizations' supplemental insurance programs and private insurance programs increased by 80% between 2005 and 2010. Over that period, the public's expenditure on insurance in general, including car and home insurance, increased only 10%.
This signals that the public is increasingly finding public health services to be insufficient.
Israelis spent a massive NIS 5.5 billion on health insurance premiums in 2010, including NIS 3 billion for supplementary insurance through their HMOs and NIS 2.5 billion through private insurance companies. The latter sum never finds its way into the public health system, since by law, private insurance can be used only at private medical facilities.
A full 81% of Israelis have some form of private insurance. This figure places Israel third on the list of OECD member nations.
The researchers - Daniella Arieli, Nir Keidar and Tuvia Horev from the Health Ministry's economic and health insurance department - compared the trend in Israel to that in other OECD nations.
Between 2003 and 2009, Israelis' spending on private insurance increased at three times the rate it did in the OECD as a whole, they found. During that period, the per-person expenditure on private insurance increased by 58%, versus 37% in the OECD.
In addition, Israelis don't get much for their money, they found: For every shekel an Israeli pays an insurer, he or she gets less than 50 agorot back.
However, this figure varies widely among different insurers: The HMOs' supplementary insurance programs return an average of 71%, while private insurance companies return an average of only 36%.
Once, dental care was Israelis' largest private healthcare expense, they noted. But now, supplementary insurance is taking a growing share of the pie. This is the single most important factor in climbing healthcare costs over the last decade, they added.
"This is a warning sign," said Keidar. "If we continue at this pace, Israel will be one of the countries with the highest expenditures on health insurance."
