Dessy Sagita – Indonesia Corruption Watch has demanded the House of Representatives delay passing the controversial health bill, claiming the legislation remains flawed and had failed to include public participation during deliberations.

"We were totally left out, never involved in any discussions and we didn't have access to review the bill," ICW researcher Ratna Kusumaningsih told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday.

The bill, which has been debated since 2001, was expected to be endorsed either today or Tuesday as lawmakers – most of whom have been voted out of office – continued to rush through contentious legislation before their terms expire.

Ratna said that bill repeatedly referred to health as a public obligation, which indicated lawmakers were attempting to transfer ownership of health care from the government to the public.

"Health is supposed to be a basic human right, not an obligation – it is the government's responsibility to take care of its people," she said.

Ratna was particularly critical about one article in the bill that stipulated every citizen had to take out health insurance.

"Millions of Indonesians cannot even afford food, how they are going to pay for the insurance scheme, it should be paid by the country," she said. "Moreover, the bill is prone to multiple interpretations that can lead to problems."

Because of the bill's vague wording on the issue of who was ultimately responsible for the health insurance, Ratna said that it needed to be amended to clearly indicate it was the government's responsibility.

She said that if the bill was not postponed, the ICW would lodge a judicial review in the Supreme Court.

Members of the House of Representatives Commission IX for population and health have previously been criticized for their repeated failures to increase transparency in debating the bill and were accused of violating a 2004 law that stipulated the public had to be involved in the process of formulating laws.

The current health commissioners have been working on the revision of a 1992 law regarding the health sector for the past four years. The old law is considered outdated and does not cover key issues such as health financing and reproductive health.

The new bill has come under fire though from critics who say it inappropriately imposes religious values on public health issues and fails to guarantee health security for all citizens.

Max Sopacua, who is on Commission IX, denied that the House had not taken public opinion into consideration when formulating the bill. The Democratic Party lawmaker said that their deliberations had involved numerous elements from society, including the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) and the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI).

"It took eight years to finally endorse this bill, so many institutions, organizations and stakeholders have been involved in making the decision," Sopacua said.

"We never kept it a secret. We were open to all opinions, but of course we could not accommodate input from every party – we had to prioritize them according to public importance."

Sopacua said the bill was ready to be endorsed and there was no need for it to be reviewed first.