Jakarta – Patients with chronic illnesses say they have lost access to lifesaving treatment after the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) eliminated subsidies for around 11 million national health insurance (JKN) member
Nani, 34, a resident of Bandung, West Java, said she was shocked when she learned during a hospital visit earlier this week that her subsidized JKN membership had been deactivated.
"The hospital said that my health insurance coverage had been canceled starting on Feb. 1, just days before my scheduled blood transfusion. It felt like my world collapsed," she said on Wednesday, as quoted by Kompas.com.
Nani has thalassemia major, a hereditary blood disorder that leads to abnormal red blood cells or an inadequate amount of hemoglobin, and requires lifelong treatment through blood transfusions every few weeks.
For the past five years, she has relied on JKN to cover her medication and treatment costs, which she says she cannot afford without the government's health subsidy program.
Nani sought clarification from the local social affairs office, where officials told her that her JKN subsidy had been revoked after she was reclassified as a middle-income earner, though Nani said she had a limited income.
"I have filed an appeal against the deactivation of my subsidized JKN [policy] and am waiting for the government's verification process," she said.
"I do not know how long it will take and in the meantime, I am experiencing severe headaches and fatigue without transfusions."
Lala, 34, who lives in Bekasi, West Java, has had a similar experience. She has been relying on JKN to cover the costs of her kidney failure treatment, including dialysis.
On Monday, however, she learned that her JKN membership had been canceled just days before a scheduled dialysis.
"I was forced to delay my dialysis and I am already short of breath. If I don't undergo dialysis, I don't know what will happen," she said on Wednesday.
Lala said her coverage had been revoked after she was reclassified in the middle-income bracket, even though her economic circumstances had not changed.
Like Nani, she has filed an appeal against the cancellation of her insurance but the process has been slow, while she has an urgent need to resume her dialysis treatment.
Lala said she requested that her appeal be given priority attention due to her urgent medical needs and asked to receive dialysis free of charge until her JKN coverage was reinstated, but had received no response so far.
Since last July, the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) has been cutting JKN subsidies or revoking subsidized policies as it updates members' data in the Single National Social and Economic Data (DTSEN).
Launched in February 2025, the DTSEN system consolidates the government's three main social assistance databases: the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS), the national socioeconomic registry (Regsosek) and the Targeted Acceleration of Extreme Poverty Eradication (P3KE).
Over the past year, BPJS Kesehatan has revoked the subsidized JKN policies of 7.3 million members and replaced them with social assistance beneficiaries from lower-income households in the DTSEN system. Since January 2026, around 11 million subsidized JKN members have been removed.
"The total number of subsidized JKN [members] remains 96.8 million. We are only updating the beneficiary list based on data from the Social Affairs Ministry," BPJS Kesehatan spokesperson Rizzky Anugerah said on Thursday, as quoted by Kompas.id.
Rizzky said people whose JKN subsidies had been cut could file an appeal at their local social affairs agency, and that their coverage would be reinstated once their eligibility was confirmed through field verification.
He added that subsidized JKN coverage might also be reinstated for people with chronic illnesses or emergency medical conditions after field verification.
The move faces growing criticism from policyholders, particularly because their memberships were deactivated without prior notice and led to disruption of essential medical treatments.
Tony Richard Samosir, chairman of the Indonesian Dialysis Patients Community (KPCDI), said more than 100 members had been affected by the BPJS Kesehatan's recent data updates.
"We strongly condemn the BPJS Kesehatan's chaotic verification system, which has caused dozens of dialysis patients to abruptly lose treatment access. Terminating coverage without notice is inhumane," Tony said.
Charles Honoris, deputy chair of House of Representatives Commission IX, which oversees health care, has urged BPJS Kesehatan to immediately establish an emergency mechanism to reactivate subsidized JKN coverage for people with chronic illnesses.
Charles also urged the Social Affairs Ministry and BPJS Kesehatan to review DTSEN's process for updating data related to subsidized JKN members.
Any verification or deactivation, he said, should provide policyholders with at least 30 days' notice as well as take their medical conditions into account. (nal)