Health insurance for all

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour’s recent call for expediting efforts to examine the means to provide comprehensive health insurance to all Jordanians is certainly an ambitious plan that requires a thorough examination of all its dimensions. 

For a start, the premier is talking about comprehensive health insurance coverage for only Jordanians, whereas Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights calls for extending basic medical care to foreigners as well. 

Paragraph one of this provision stipulates that “States Parties to the present Covenant (Jordan included) recognise the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”. 

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which monitors the application of this international human rights treaty, has already adopted what is generally referred to as “general comment” defining the scope of Article 12 by underlining the need to extend health services to everyone lawfully residing in a country, especially basic medical care. This much must be taken into consideration in any future legislation on the projected comprehensive health insurance. 

In other words, there is the need now for a well thought out legislation that defines who will be covered, whether foreigners residing in the Kingdom benefit from the scheme and to what extent the private sector is included together with the public sector. 

It is also required to spell out how this national health insurance plan is going to be funded, in addition to specifying the medical treatments that are going to be covered under it. 

Last but not least, the relationship between private and public hospitals, and clinics in the fulfilment of this right to health should be defined. 

The aforementioned Article 12 also details the steps to be taken by states parties “to achieve the full realisation” of the right to health.

These include a “provision for the reduction of the stillbirth rate and of infant mortality, and for the healthy development of the child”, as well as “the improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene”. 

In other words, the introduction of comprehensive health insurance coverage requires addressing many related dimensions in order to comply with international norms as well.