The Council of Cooperative Health Insurance has given private companies a grace period of six moths to apply the compulsory medical insurance law which obligates them to provide medical insurance to nearly 1.5 million Saudi employees. The council is scheduled to hold a meeting of its board of directors on Sunday to discuss a mechanism for electronically linking insurance companies and private companies with the council database to verify that all Saudi employees in private companies receive their medical coverage within the grace period. More than three years ago, Dr. Hamad Al-Mane', Minister of Health, announced the compulsory application of Cooperative Health Insurance for medium and small companies, employing 100 workers or more in Saudi Arabia. In a meeting with a number of health insurance companies in November 2005, the minister also announced that the system would be applied to Saudis starting in 2007.
