Dubai’s stalled scheme to offer medical insurance to every employee in the emirate is under review and may be implemented as early as next year, a senior healthcare official said Tuesday. The first stages of the revised plan, which would require every company to offer basic healthcare cover to its staff, could be rolled out in 2012, three years after its original launch date.
“The idea is that private health insurance in Dubai will be mandatory so every employer will have to provide their employees with a health insurance cover,” said Dr Yousuf Haider, director of healthcare department at Dubai Health Authority. Asked if the first stages of the scheme could be in place in 2012, Dr Haider said: “Yes.”
Dubai first unveiled plans for mandatory health insurance in 2008, with a scheme that required companies to pay between AED500 and AED800 to the government annually for each employee.
The plan was designed to offer primary healthcare, non-emergency inpatient care and some prescription drugs, while stopping short of writing a blank cheque for all medical services.
Dubai suspended the scheme in 2009 after the onset of the global financial crisis and no new timeline was established. The new-look plan proposes cutting out the government as middleman and asking companies to buy private health insurance directly for their staff, said Dr Haider.
“The previous model was more like a social insurance model so there was a major role for the government in centrally collecting the funds and distributing the funds to clinics. This has been changed into more of a private health insurance model with a strong regulator,” he said.
“The mandatory component is what we call the basic benefit package; this will ensure that people do not get into financial difficultly as a result of not having insurance.”
The burden of providing care to uninsured residents has been a key concern for many Gulf states. Saudi Arabia in 2009 rolled out mandatory health insurance for expatriates and nationals, linking proof of healthcare insurance to the renewal of workers’ visas.
Abu Dhabi has required companies and sponsors to provide medical insurance for staff and family members since 2006, in a bid to reduce the cost of medical care to the government.
A government survey in 2010 found some 75 percent of Indian, other Asians and Arab expat workers in Dubai had no health insurance and struggled to access basic medical care.
Only 23 percent of the bottom fifth of wage-earners – who earned an average of AED2,273 a month – had health insurance, the Dubai Household Health Survey showed.
Dr Haider said Dubai companies worst-hit by the global crisis, or those with significant numbers of employees, would be given longer to comply with health insurance rules.
“This is going to be rolled out gradually. Those who have had more impact [from the economic downturn] will come at the end,” he said.