IT was daytime during the 1973 holiday season at Palembang's Pendopo complex. Hatta Rajasa, son of a local subdistrict head, had returned home, taking a break from his studies at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Young Hatta took his girlfriend, Oktiniwati Ulfa Dariahto, out to dinner. Oh no! The money he had with him was not enough to pay for their meal. "Ha ha ha, I also had to pay," recalled Okke, as she is known to her friends, when chatting with Tempo recently.
ALMOST every day, a long line forms at the Social Security Administration Agency (BPJS) for Healthcare's special pharmacy window on the first floor of Jakarta's Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital. Rooms for Class 3 in-patient care, which constitutes the bulk of BPJS Healthcare patients, are always full. Some people decide to try other hospitals, even though it means they might have to pay at least half of the medical bills. "Rather than wait a week without knowing if you will get a room, it's better I go to another hospital," said Iskandar, a Lampung resident who finally took his wife to the Jakarta Islamic Hospital for an urgent kidney stone operation two weeks ago.
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