Almost 100,000 people whose universal healthcare membership was revoked in December due to citizenship problems are still struggling to get their coverage back.
The issue was raised at a recent monthly meeting of the National Health Security Board (NHSB). The meeting was joined by members of the public and representatives of the Public Health Ministry and National Health Security Office (NHSO).
In December, the NHSO said it removed more than 95,000 people with what it labelled "dubious citizenship" from its 30-baht universal coverage (UC) healthcare scheme. The NHSO said these people were disqualified because they are not Thai citizens. The group includes Thai-born Chinese residents who lack the documentation to prove their family histories or apply for citizenship.
Before that, they had been able to use the healthcare scheme. Some only found out that their coverage had been revoked when they were turned away from hospitals.
The NHSO said those people might have been mistakenly included on the list of Thai citizens eligible for the UC scheme when it was launched more than a decade ago.
Several months after their coverage had been revoked, little progress has been made to solve the problem, NHSB committee member Nimit Tian-udom said.
“It’s the third time we have discussed the problem,” he said. “But each time we get nowhere. The Public Health Ministry must identify the details clearly.”
Mr Nimit said the NHSB raised the same topic in its previous monthly meetings with the Public Health Ministry in March and April, but no solution was finalised.
Despite the NHSO saying it removed 95,000 people from the healthcare register, the ministry claims the number was actually 200,000.
The ministry has received a budget of 973 million baht in the latest fiscal year to provide healthcare to 500,000 people with citizenship problems. But permanent secretary for health Songyos Chanchana said the ministry was unable to shoulder the burden of providing services to the surplus of people whose access had been revoked.
Dr Songyos also said the ministry may request more funds from the government to enable the provision of health services to the group. He said the ministry may encourage them to buy health insurance for migrants which costs 2,800 baht per person annually.
But Suntaree H Saeng-ging, an NHSB committee member, said these people shouldn’t have to buy such health insurance, since they are not migrants.
“Whether they have a Thai ID card or not, these people were born and raised in Thailand,” she said.