Health Policy Program
Examination of Israel’s health system over time and in comparison with other health systems abroad is essential for making better use of existing health care resources. The Health Policy Program focuses on various facets of the system, including differences in the accessibility of health care and coverage, costs, and the supply of health care professionals.
- Policy Program Fellows
- Chair
- Dov Chernichovsky
- Fellows
- Uri Aviram
- Ran Balicer
- Shlomo Barnoon
- Yitzhak Berlowitz
- Nakhle Beshara
- Gabi Bin Nun
- Bishara Bisharat
- Shay Brill
- David Chinitz
- Chaim Doron
- Asher Elhayany
- Leon Epstein
- Zeev Feldman
- Zvi Frankel
- Iris Ginzburg
- Kobi Glazer
- Eitan Hai-Am
- Jonathan Halevy
- Eran Halperin
- Tuvia Horev
- Avi Israeli
- Orit Jacobson
- Nir Kaidar
- Avigdor Kaplan
- Rachel Kaye
- Jacob Menczel
- Shlomo Mor-Yosef
- Guy Navon
- Meir Oren
- Yair Shapiro
- Michael Sherf
- Arie Shirom
- Amir Shmueli
- Yohanan Shtessman
Israel’s Healthcare System
Israel’s national healthcare system suffers from structural flaws to which the State has contributed. These include a lack of both the resources and the administrative flexibility to cope with rising demand for care as supply has declined. Rather than aiding the public part of the system to cope with the challenge, the State has exacerbated the situation by reducing the share of public funding and by encouraging the private insurance funds to provide these services. The result is an uncontrolled rise in service demand in the private part of the system that is largely met by personnel who are also employed in the public part.
Thus, not only has the healthcare system declined in efficiency, reflected in a relative inflation of healthcare prices due to double pay and waste, but the situation has also worsened in terms of income distribution and access to medical services. This deterioration also manifests in growing disparities between poor and rich, between central Israel and its periphery, and between incomes of interns, who cannot do privately paid work and those of specialists who can. Worst of all, early indications of these systemic flaws are becoming apparent at the public health level, as seen in a rise in infant mortality among the Bedouin of the Negev and other weaker groups in society.
This appears as a chapter in the Center’s annual publication State of the Nation Report – Society, Economy and Policy 2010.