Health Coverage Exceeds Singapore and Malaysia, Prabowo: We Are Rich

President Prabowo Subianto has outlined a series of social assistance programmes continuously disbursed by the government to impoverished communities in Indonesia, including for health matters. He stated that the scale of these programmes is many times larger than those in other countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, particularly for the National Health Insurance (JKN) programme. “National health insurance covers 96.8 million people, nearly 100 million. It is 20 times larger than Singapore’s and 3.5 times larger than Malaysia’s, the coverage we provide,” Prabowo said during a Presidential Briefing at a Plenary Cabinet Session at the State Palace in Jakarta on Monday. In addition, Prabowo mentioned that the government’s social assistance programmes are also larger than those in other countries, such as the Family Hope Programme (PKH), which targets 10 million beneficiary families from the first to fourth deciles. He noted that the programme already reaches around 40 million Indonesians, providing cash ranging from Rp 70,000 to Rp 250,000 per month. There is also the Sekolah Rakyat programme for children from the poorest segments of society, with assistance valued at Rp 4 million per month. Furthermore, the Smart Indonesia Card (KIP) for university students targets 1.2 million students, providing living cost assistance with a tuition fee waiver of Rp 800,000 to Rp 1.4 million per month. The government also distributes aid through the Indonesia Pintar Programme (PIP) to 22 million students in the form of hundreds of thousands of rupiah in cash, basic food assistance of Rp 200,000 per month for 18 million families, and the Atensi social assistance programme providing a maximum of Rp 2.4 million per year per recipient, reaching nearly 90,000 people. There are also LPG subsidies, diesel subsidies and compensation, petrol compensation, electricity subsidies and compensation, electricity tariff discounts, train fare discounts, sea transport fare discounts, and food aid. “Sixty-six million households receive LPG subsidies, 66 million households at Rp 400,000 each, twice that of Malaysia and 12 times that of Singapore. The Indonesian government is doing quite well,” he explained. On that occasion, he listed various other forms of aid continuously provided by the government, such as free nutritious meals, free health check-ups, paid internship programmes at the district minimum wage, Garuda superior schools, LPDP scholarships, Garuda undergraduate scholarships, Defence University undergraduate scholarships, Nusantara Taruna School scholarships, fertiliser subsidies, KUR interest subsidies, and free halal certification. “Show me another country like us; there may be greater ones, but the Indonesian nation is not bad. Let us not underestimate ourselves. We are strong. We are strong, we are rich, and we will be richer,” he stated.