City to double health spending

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The City Health Agency has proposed Rp 100 billion (US$10.99 million) be spent on a health care card scheme for poor families in 2005, more than twice the amount in this year's city budget.

The Gakin card scheme would cover about 40 percent of Jakarta's 8.3 million population, or about 3.32 million people, agency head Abdul Chalik Masulili said on Thursday.

This year, with Rp 40 billion spent, only 5 percent of the population held Gakin cards, or about 415,000 people.

Abdul said a Rp 21 billion fuel subsidy fund from the state budget would help make up the difference.

"We have to increase the fund for health services for poor families. Next year, our target will be much higher," he told The Jakarta Post.

Masulili said the jump in the number of people targeted to receive the service came after data from neighborhood units was used to calculate the number of poor families in the city instead of figures provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The administration had earlier been asked by the City Council to upgrade the existing database on poor families in the capital. The database is expected to be completed in the first half of next year.

Masulili said local government agencies had been discussing what the criteria was for poor people who deserved health services.

"We will verify our list of those who deserve services with the neighborhood unit chiefs," he said.

City Council deputy speaker Ahmad Heryawan had said earlier the new Gakin card scheme would provide discounts for health services based on the recipients' income levels and living circumstances.

Under the proposed scheme, some people would qualify for medical discounts of 25 percent, 50 percent, or 75 percent, while the poorest of the poor would pay nothing at all.

Masulili said in total, the city was expected to allocate Rp 800 billion to the health sector next year. He did not provide a cost breakdown.

The administration has proposed a hike in its overall budget from Rp 12.26 trillion this year to Rp 13.93 trillion next year. The draft budget will be deliberated by the administration and the council in December.

The budget will be prioritized for the construction of the busway corridors (Rp 515 billion), land acquisition for the East Flood Canal construction (Rp 450 billion), maintenance of small lakes and Angke and Ciliwung rivers (Rp 401.5 billion), the construction of low-cost apartments (Rp 150 billion) and the procurement of incinerators for waste treatment facilities (Rp 400 billion).