CAIRO: Dr Said Rateb, chairman of the Health Insurance Department at the Ministry of Health denied any plans to privatize the public health insurance system.

He made this statement to The Daily Star Egypt reacting to an article published by Al-Masry Al-Youm that alleged the existence of a joint project between the Ministry of Health and USAID to privatize national health insurance.

Rateb denied the news and said that, "the only thing that is going on in the Health insurance department is that the we have decided to expand our services and supervise the private health insurance sector along with the national one."

"But national health insurance will remain as it is, it will not be privatized," he added.

The national health insurance service, which is provided by the government, covers around 54 percent of the Egyptian population, Rateb said.

According to Rateb, the system is undergoing changes in order to provide better services to the huge number of users.

A source from the USAID project said that USAID is providing technical assistance to a local governmental committee working on drafting a new universal social health insurance law.

He explicitly indicated that the law is intended to increase access to and enhance the service and that it "has nothing to do with privatizing" the system.

Rateb blamed Al-Masry Al-Youm for not double checking its sources.