Abortion added to healthcare basket

The 2014 basket includes 83 new treatments and abortion for women aged 20-33 without a medical reason for terminating pregnancy.

A special Ministry of Health committee this morning handed to Minister of Health Yael German the list of new drugs, procedures and technologies that will be covered for the first time by health funds in the 2014 health basket.

Women aged between 20 and 33 will now be eligible for abortions even if they do not have a medical reason for terminating their pregnancy. However, they will still be required to receive approval from a pregnancy termination committee.

The committee also added 83 new drugs to the health basket provided to all Israelis through their health funds, which will be used to treat 115,000 patients needing them. 600 new drugs were considered.

The entire health basket costs over $5 billion and it will increase by NIS 300 million in 2014.

Most of the new drugs approved are for cancer treatment and other new drugs in the basket are for AIDS, epilepsy and treating blood clots to prevent strokes.

Drugs left outside the basket include treatments for impotence, anti-depressants, attention disorder, and alcohol addiction.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 30, 2013

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013

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