Expats to receive health insurance from employers next year
Starting next year, all residents in Qatar including expatriates and domestic workers will be given health insurance under the national health insurance scheme, Seha.
According to the official website of National Health Insurance Company, Seha is the national health insurance programme in Qatar. It provides insurance coverage through a ‘network of public and private providers’.
The scheme which was launched in 2013, was covering the insurance of Qatari females aged 12 and above for gynecology, obstetrics, maternity and related women’s health conditions. However, the next phase introduced by the progamme, included insurance coverage for basic healthcare of all the Qataris, both males and females.
Now, according to the Minister of Public Health H E Abdullah bin Khalid Al Qahtani, health insurance will be provided for all residents in Qatar, including expats, starting from next year.
However, unlike the Qataris who receive health insurance from the government, all the expats will be provided with insurance by their respective employers.
According to Qatar Tribune, all employers will pay for the insurance of their workers’ health without deducting that amount from the original salary of the workers.
However, the health insurance package offered to the expats will differ as per the category of their job. Qahtani said in the Qatar Tribune, “And the basic packaging will depend on the group’s needs and the pricing will be according to that package”.
While nationals can continue to use their Qatar ID cards to access health services, expats will be given cards by their individual private insurers.
The date when this new phase would be implemented or further details regarding it have not been revealed so far.
According to this article there is nothing decided about what the insurance will actually cover for ex-pats. It may not even end up being entirely free, it could be a system where the patient pays the first 100 riyals for the consultation.
Like anything, I would wait for the details before getting excited, this could in fact end up being a worse situation than what is in place already.
Great step..!!
But this means that the companies will have lower profits - So, how will they make that up ? Through the worker i assume ...
As Shakespeare said: Much ado about nothing!
post says from next year, but did not mention exactly when, may be end of 2016 or may be never.
we are used to of reading such articles in papers, which are never implemented. Take for example rule for new sponsorship law, where it is now, so much talk and at the end no result.
so hamad card going to be useless, and clinics will be empty.
good move...