Health Basket for 2023 to Add 120 Medications, Biggest Expansion Ever

By Hamodia Staff

YERUSHALAYIM – A panel of experts submitted on Wednesday their recommendations for the expansion of the health basket of the Israeli medical system, adding some 120 medications in 2023, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The new medications, if approved by the health and finance ministries, will be made available to an estimated 350,000 people through the country’s four health funds at a cost of 650 million shekel.

Health Minister Rabbi Arye Deri welcomed the report from the committee chaired by Prof. Dina Ben-Yehuda:

“The recommendations of the Basket Committee submitted to me today concern all citizens of Israel. I am proud that the addition to the basket of medicines we brought this year is the largest ever in Israel. Thanks to this expansion, oncology drugs, prevention technologies and life-prolonging products that were not planned to join the basket entered this year. These technologies and medicines will allow the weaker sections to receive much better and much more advanced medicine. Blessings to all those involved in the [work],” he said.

Included in the additions are:

Vaccination against shingles for at-risk populations and those aged 65 and over; Prevenar vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia; eyeglasses for children up to seven years of age; the world’s most advanced treatments for cancer patients, including immunotherapy drugs; genetic tests for tumors to adapt the best treatment for their disease; drugs for multiple myeloma; personalized drugs; advanced therapies and more.

Also on the list are treatments for chronic diseases: diabetes, nephrology, neurology, pulmonary medicine, cardiology and other fields of medicine. Various technologies such as a continuous hybrid system for sugar monitoring and insulin infusion by expanding eligibility for children with juvenile diabetes; treatment in communication-disorder clinics for people who stutter; lung rehabilitation; and more.

There was some critical reaction to the announcement. The Obesity Research and Treatment Society chairman Prof. Dror Dicker said: “It is a pity that the State of Israel ignores a quarter of its population that suffer from the disease of obesity. There is no economic sense in the state’s preference to spend a total of NIS 20 billion per year on medications that are the consequences of the obesity epidemic on the economy and society, rather than allocating a budget in the basket to treat obesity. The results of obesity cost a fortune, but there is almost no investment in their treatment,” he lamented.

The Israel Internal Medicine Society chairman Prof. Avishi Ellis said: “This is not enough. The government must allocate an orderly and significant amount of money to improve treatment conditions and hospitalization conditions, including the purchase of medical equipment for the internal departments, the addition of medical and paramedical standards and the realization of its promise to build wards and stop hospitalizations in the corridors,” the Post quoted him as saying.