Anita Rachman & Dessy Sagita – For the thousands of workers who trooped to Jakarta on Friday to demand the House of Representatives pass the social security scheme bill into law, their efforts were not in vain.
The last-minute endorsement of the Social Security Organizing Body (BPJS) Law was a big victory for Indonesia that deserved to be celebrated, according to Said Iqbal, the secretary general of the Social Security Action Committee (KAJS), which comprises 67 labor unions from Greater Jakarta.
"Finally, after all these years, we will have universal health insurance coverage," he said.
The law will create a single state entity in 2014 that will cover health, and another in 2015 that will cover life insurance, work accident insurance, civil service pensions and old-age pensions. Under the law, therefore, workers and the poor will get full protection and coverage for even severe or complicated illnesses.
Labor unions have been at the forefront of efforts to push the House and the government to pass the long-awaited and much-delayed bill into law.
By 10 a.m. on Friday, the last day that the bill could be passed before being shelved until the next term, an estimated 5,000 workers had already converged in front of the House in Senayan in what is believed to be their biggest demonstration in support of it.
The crowd was so large that Jakarta Police had to close the road, worsening traffic. "I did not go to work today. I asked for permission from my boss, and he allowed me to come here to join the demonstration," Mustopo, a 48-year-old factory worker from Cengkareng, said.
They came from cities including Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bandung, Cimahi and Banten, and had just a single goal: to demand the passage of the law. "This is important, so that when workers get sick [BPJS] will cover it," said Charul Hidayat, 28, worker from a metal factory.
Novalia Andayani, who works in an electronics factory, said workers like her do not at present have full health care provision. When they get seriously ill, hospitals do not want to treat them because they cannot pay.
"We pay taxes, so why are we not covered [by state insurance] when we get sick?" she asked. KAJS's Said said that if the law was properly implemented, there would be an end to denial of services by hospitals or clinics.
He said that once the first BPJS entity, the one for health, is formed in 2014, 30 million private company employees would be covered for the first time. "January 1, 2014, will be a historic day because the BPJS fund will help us and not just state-owned companies," he said.
Dr. Marius Widjajarta, chairman of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation for Health (YPKKI) said the BPJS law offered new hope for millions of Indonesians. "It doesn't matter if the law is flawed, we can fix it as we go by, the most important thing is that we now have a safety net for our future," he said.
Marius said the most important thing to do now was to inform people about the new law, what rights they would be entitled to get and what obligations they needed to fulfill. "2014 is not far away, we shouldn't waste a minute to tell our people that they now have the chance to live a better life," he said.