Compulsory health insurance project to be launched in january 2005, pm

Moroccan prime minister, Driss Jettou, said Wednesday, that the project of compulsory global health insurance will be enforced as of January 2005.

The new law on compulsory health insurance will be covering 32.5 percent of the active population up against 16.5 percent presently.

Jettou made the announcement at a meeting with representatives of unions and the employers federation (CGEM) on the application of the projects. He recalled that the adoption by a cabinet meeting last April of a draft decree creating the National Agency of Illness Insurance is an essential and determining step in activating the global insurance project.

This important social asset will be finalized during coming weeks through the setting up of management bodies for the agency and mobilization of the necessary human and material means, to enable it to start its activities.

The approach the government is pondering in the field consists in "preparing a solid and serious platform that takes into account our enterprises' constraints and preserves employees' rights in the public and private sectors," he said. In the same drive, Jettou reiterated the government's will to adopt a progressive application method and pursue a prevention-based policy in public health.