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Pandemic forces people out of BPJS Kesehatan
About 1.62 million Indonesians lose their health insurance because of massive layoffs and decreased funding from local administrations.
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Handling a crisis: An employee of the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) serves a customer at the agency’s branch office in Jakarta on July 1. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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t a time when millions have been pushed out of jobs and put at risk of catching COVID-19, Indonesia's supposedly universal national health insurance program (JKN) is seeing a decrease in participants.
The Health Ministry has recorded 222.48 million JKN participants — or around 82 percent of the country’s population — as of September, a decline from 224.1 million participants at the end of last year.
Ministry expert staffer Kuwat Sri Hudoyo Dal said in a press release that the decline was seen in the number of contribution assistance (PBI) recipients, whose premiums are fully paid by regional administrations. PBI recipients are low-income patients.
Meanwhile, the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan), which runs the JKN program, has recorded a slightly higher number of 223 million JKN policyholders as of November. This includes 36.19 million PBI recipients whose premiums are paid by the local administrations and 96.51 million by the central government.
Activist Timboel Siregar from BPJS Watch, who is also the secretary-general of the Indonesian Workers Organization (OPSI), said local administrations had been cleansing their PBI data, which might result in some of these former PBI recipients not being able to pay their own premiums and, thus, becoming inactive participants.
Read also: COVID-19 exposes flaws in Indonesia’s health insurance program
But the massive lay-offs observed over the course of the epidemic had also greatly contributed to the decline.
