DUSHANBE, December 2, 2013, Asia-Plus – Tajik insurance company, Mehnat (Labor), has announced its readiness to support Tajik labor migrants working in Russia through making available all the necessary information and practical consultation on the procedure of getting health insurance for working in the Russian Federation.

“Our company has organized twenty-four-hour information service that makes available all the necessary information about the health insurance,” an official source at Mehnat told Asia-Plus in an interview.

Mehnat top manager Firdavs Mastoulov says Russia will introduce a mandatory health insurance for foreign migrant workers beginning on January 1, 2014.

 “The Government of Russia has already endorsed the amendment to the Labor Code requiring foreign labor migrants to get health insurance,” Mastoulov noted.

We will recall that an article entitled “Citizens of CIS Countries Traveling to Russia Will Be Required to Buy Health Insurance” that was published in Izvestiya on July 30, 2013 note that the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber r of parliament) decided to amend the entry procedures for foreigners coming to Russia to require them to buy medical insurance.

Aleksey Zhuravlev, the State Duma deputy from the “United Russia” party, who initiated the measure, says this is necessary in order to stop the illegal “medical tourism,” when citizens of the CIS nations come to Russia to get skilled and free medical assistance.  Most of those foreigners are patients with serious diseases, as well as expectant mothers.

According to Zhuravlev, today this process is, in fact, not regulated by law.  According to the law “On the Procedure for Exit from the Russian Federation and Entry into the Russian Federation,” foreign nationals who enter Russia on a valid visa must present proof of medical insurance.  This requirement does not apply to those who enter Russia under visa-free arrangements.

The lawmaker proposes to amend Article 19 of the Law on Health Care, as well as Article 25.9 of the Law “On the Procedure for Exit from the Russian Federation and Entry into the Russian Federation.”  Zhuravlev suggests that the amendments should require citizens of the former Soviet Union countries to buy a health insurance policy.  He suggests that a foreign national who received medical care and is unable to pay for the services should be subject to immediate deportation.