TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) Managing Director, Ali Ghufron Mukti, said 82.3 percent of the total population has registered under the National Health Insurance and Healthy Indonesia Card (JKN-KIS) program as of the end of March 2021. The number of participants continued to be pushed in order to reach the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) target of 98 percent by 2024.

Ali argued that cross-sectoral synergies were necessary to expand the scope of the health insurance membership. This year, his side targeted management, supervisors, and members of cooperatives as well as micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to be active JKN-KIS participants.

"The Cooperatives and MSMEs Ministry as the authorized institution to manage cooperatives and MSMEs are expected to support the sustainability of the JKN-KIS program. The cooperative members and entrepreneurs are highly potential to be JKN-KIS participants,” he added.

Based on data from the ministry’s data, there were 22,463,738 cooperative members in 2019. The number of MSMEs players in 2018 reached 116,978,631. As of the end of last month, there were only 333,567 business entities that have registered under the program.

In order to improve the accuracy and validity of JKN-KIS participant data, Ali hoped that the ministry would soon integrate data on cooperative members and MSMEs players with the JKN-KIS data.

Read: Govt to Use BPJS Kesehatan Data for Free Covid-19 Vaccination

FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA