Government needs valid database on the poor

Government needs valid database on the poor

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sutinah and her husband, residents of Rawa Badak, North
Jakarta, have to feed six children, not to mention her parents,
who all live in the same house. Rundown and crammed with cheap
plastic furniture, their 30-square-meter dwelling represents the
family's difficult economic condition well.

Despite the fact that government health subsidies for the poor
have been available since 1999, Sutinah, a 37-year-old mother,
and her family have only enjoyed the free health care service for
two years.

"I did not have the time to do the paperwork to obtain the
kartu sehat (health card) since I had to work," she said. Her
business, a door-to-door laundry service, was extremely time-
consuming, she explained.

"But, when I delivered our third baby, things became so
expensive that my husband decided to ask for the health card,"
she said, showing a stained green card labeled Kartu Gakin 2003,
bearing the names of her family members.

Although the family's living quarters should have been proof
enough, they had to spend considerable time applying for the
service before receiving the assistance already earmarked for
them.

"Previous Social Safety Net health programs, aimed at giving
support to poor families, were ineffective," the head of the
Indonesian Health Consumer Empowerment Foundation, Marius
Widjajarta, said on Friday.

Earlier programs were not well monitored, with the funds
disbursed directly to health care providers, such as doctors,
hospitals and community health centers, without having a solid
database to identify poor people in the country, he said.

He said YPKKI found out that some families were getting more
than one card and selling the extra card for Rp 150,000
(US$16.30) to Rp 300,000 in Cilincing and Purwakarta, West Java.

"We hope that the disbursement of the current health subsidies
in the form of insurance will be based on valid data," Marius
said.

The new data compiled by state-owned health insurance company
PT Askes and local administrations indicates there are 60 million
people eligible for the government's program to assist those
hardest hit by the recent fuel price hikes -- not the 36 million
recorded by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) last year.

The new figure accounts for more than a quarter of the
country's population.

However, an expert said he doubted the validity of the larger
number.

Gadjah Mada University professor Mubyarto told The Jakarta
Post the criteria to define poverty should be based on the
financial ability to cover primary needs, including health and
education, and not the $2 daily income stated by the World Bank.

Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said that such a large
increase in the estimated poor population was realistic and was
not caused by the fuel price hike.

"The number would have probably been that large even before
the fuel price hike, if the previous data compiling process had
been accurate," she said.

After having completed validating the data on poor people, the
government now had to monitor and evaluate the performance of the
program, Marius said.

"If we still find problems in identifying and distributing the
health cards in the future, maybe the government will need to
make the mechanism for issuing the cards part of a binding law or
regulation," he said. (003)