Meir Spiegler, the former director general of Israel’s National Insurance Institute, rejected criticism in the State Comptroller’s report that the 2018 long-term care insurance reform harmed the agency’s financial stability. Speaking Monday on the Radio 2 program “Ze M’giyah Lachem,” he said that if the institute simply stopped paying benefits, “then the body would not be in deficit.”
Spiegler said the reform, implemented after findings raised by the comptroller in 2017, ended humiliating home assessments for elderly people with nursing needs. He recalled that earlier “they used to tell an elderly person, ‘You did not bend down enough,’” and argued that the changes reflected what “a normal society” should do to treat older people with dignity. He added that before the reform, people were not receiving the benefits they were legally entitled to, and that the institute ensured those who had been rejected for “absurd excuses” would get what they deserved.
He also attacked the long-standing surplus agreement between the National Insurance Institute and the Finance Ministry, under which pension surpluses from the insurance system are transferred for the ministry’s use. In his words, the Finance Ministry has for decades treated policyholders’ money, “an insurance premium paid lawfully,” as if it were a tax and used it as it wished. “In my opinion this is blatantly illegal,” he said.
Spiegler said that when he tried to stop the arrangement and demand the money back for insured citizens, he was threatened. He said he was warned of personal liability and would have to answer for supposed “damages” to the state, even though, he said, he was only trying to make sure people who paid insurance premiums received what was owed to them.
