ABSTRACT
The Histadrut Sick Fund primacy during the Mandate as the most general and comprehensive provider of ambulatory curative care was further extended, but the other sick funds succeeded in specializing in various niches of the emergent socio-political structure, among both Jews and Arabs. Local authorities and municipalities together with a proposed National Institute for Insurance for the social insurance of hired workers were to be responsible for operating the National Health Service, while the government and the local authorities would finance it. Some opinions with regard to compulsory health insurance and ownership of the health services than that expressed in the plan were intensely pronounced. Israel became characterized by a partial national health insurance—a limited compulsory social insurance, and wide state-subsidized voluntary insurance. The immediate consequences, with regard to the health services, of the creation of Israel were interdependent disruptions for Jews and for Arabs.
