Health care in Israel

Health care in Israel is universal and participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory. All Israeli citizens are entitled to basic health care as a fundamental right. The Israeli healthcare system is based on the National Health Insurance Law of 1995, which mandates all citizens resident in the country to join one of four official health insurance organizations which are run as not-for-profit organizations, and are prohibited by law from denying any Israeli citizen membership. Israelis can increase their medical coverage and improve their options by purchasing private health insurance. In a survey of 48 countries in 2013, Israel's health system was ranked fourth in the world in terms of efficiency, and in 2014 it ranked seventh out of 51. In 2015, Israel was ranked sixth-healthiest country in the world by Bloomberg rankings and ranked eighth in terms of life expectancy.

During the Ottoman era, health care in Palestine was poor and underdeveloped. Most medical institutions were run by Christian missionaries, who attracted the indigent by offering free care. In the late nineteenth century, as the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community, began to grow in the wake of the First Aliyah, the Jews attempted to establish their own medical system. In 1872, Max Sandreczky, a German Christian physician, settled in Jerusalem and opened the first children's hospital in the country, Marienstift, which admitted children of all faiths. The Jewish agricultural settlements, financially backed by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, hired a physician who traveled between the communities and ran a pharmacy in Jaffa which he visited twice a week.

In 1902, the first Jewish hospital, Shaarei Zedek, opened in the Old City of Jerusalem. Additional Jewish hospitals were built in Jerusalem and Jaffa. In 1911, the Judea Worker's Health Fund, which later evolved into Clalit Health Services, was established as the first Zionist health insurance fund in the country.

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