Projet de loi étendant la gratuité des soins de santé à certains anciens combattants et victimes de guerre, à l'intervention de l'Institut des Vétérans - Institut National des Invalides de Guerre, Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre.
General information ¶
- Submitted by
-
The Senate
- Submission date
- Oct. 13, 2005
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- war war victim
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
July 13, 2006 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Rapporteur Magda De Meyer ⚙
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the bill extending to certain veterans and war victims the free medical care through the mediation of the Institute for Veterans – National Institute for War Disabled, veterans and war victims, was the subject of the meeting of the Committee for Lands Defense of 12 July 2006. Minister Flahaut specified that it was actually an original bill from the Senate, dated October 13, 2005.
The original bill proposed by Ms. Lizin was intended to replace the date of 2 September 1945 with the date of 1 June 1946 in certain statutes of national recognition. The main objective, therefore, was actually to extend the statutory period so that more war volunteers could enjoy the benefit of reimbursement of the brake money.
Of course, this was a noble goal, but in the discussion, however, it turned out that there were some problems with the original bill as formulated in the Senate. In particular, it would extend certain benefits to the so-called peace period so that it would actually allow soldiers recruited before 1 June 1946 to enjoy the refund of the brake money without ever participating in combat.
This would, of course, install a certain form of injustice in relation to other people who had actually fought for the motherland. In addition, the costs of this bill, as originally formulated in the Senate, were no less: it was about 2 million euros. In the current budgetary situation, this could not be considered realistic. Therefore, they began to look at other possibilities. Their
They then bowed over the advice of the High Council for War Invalides, Old Fighters and War Victims. It had formulated a unanimous opinion on an important claim, in particular the reduction of the period required to be able to enjoy in one or more statutes of national gratitude the refund of the brake fee for medical care. That period would be reduced to 9 months instead of the original 12 months. In this sense, the original bill was amended in the Senate. This amended proposal was eventually approved by a large majority in the Senate and came to the House as such. The proposal would cover approximately 2,000 beneficiaries and the cost is approximately EUR 600,000 annually. The Minister of Finance could agree on the basis of these figures. For the financial year 2006, of course, the necessary appropriations for this new proposal were not included in the budget. For 2006 it is about 250,000 euros. The Minister of Land Defense himself found this money, in particular by reusing part of the financial resources released from the sale of the institute's rest homes. Their
The adoption of this bill would, of course, a few days before the national holiday, be an important signal to those people who have so committed themselves for our homeland and for future generations.
During the general discussion, I myself referred to the fact that, of course, we fully support the initiative since we ourselves, by the help of colleague Jan Peeters, with an original bill on the basis layers of the fact that the war victims can enjoy free medical care based on a number of performed months.
By the way, the original proposal of colleague Peeters stipulated that the criterion for being able to enjoy free medical care would be a performance period of 9 months, but at that time, due to budgetary imperatives, it was eventually chosen for 12 months. The present draft brings everything back to the original proposal, namely that a performance of 9 months in some proven status would be sufficient to be able to enjoy free medical care. There is no need to argue that this is a ⁇ important measure for those people. These people are all at least 80 years old; it is an extinct group. It is important that society as a whole sends the signal to those people that what they have done for us is highly appreciated and that we do so now in view of the national holiday that will soon be celebrated.
Mr Sevenhans, on behalf of the Vlaams Belang, also supported the bill. The same applies to Ms. Ingrid Meeus of the VLD. It was of the opinion that the present draft meets the existing needs. The Minister could only agree, saying that it was important, in view of the upcoming national holiday, to unanimously support the draft. This is what happened in the committee, Mr. President. We were assisted by Mr. Robert Denis of the MR, who also said that this design was an important design and fully joined it. Therefore, the draft, as it is now presented in the Chamber, was unanimously adopted in our committee.