The bill, sponsored by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is acting welfare minister, calls for an experimental program involving some 4,000 elderly. The experiment will include only elderly with chronic care needs who employ round-the-clock caregivers, and only those entitled to the highest allowance: 15.5 weekly care hours.

Backers of the controversial bill claim it will lower the costs involved in employing foreign caregivers and will prevent caregiver agencies from receiving NII money at the expense of the elderly.

The bill's opponents are concerned it will lead to the ruination of the existing caregiving law - one that is considered one of the finest in the world. According to this law, elderly people who have difficulty carrying out everyday activities such as eating, bathing and moving about are entitled to a caregiver from the NII. The home-care allowance is the only one that is not disbursed in the form of money because the law's framers thought that they would thus protect the elderly from exploitation by relatives who might use the money for other purposes and neglect the recipients.

The idea of allowing eligible elderly to receive money was conceived about five years ago in response to the increasing number of elderly who employ foreign caregivers. Under the existing arrangement, the foreign worker's wages are partially paid by the caregiver agencies out of the home-care allowance they receive for clients from the NII, and the client pays the rest of the caregiver's salary.

There are currently around 10,000 foreign workers employed by people eligible for the home-care allowance.

The average allowance is NIS 1,850. The NII claims that caregiver agencies deduct from the allowance hefty amounts intended as workers' benefits, and that as a result the elderly are forced to pay more out of their own pocket than they would if they had received the money directly.

However, according to the draft legislation, the elderly will not receive the allowance in full, but rather 80 percent of it. The money will be allocated only to those who do not employ a relative, and only to those whose caregiver legally resides in the country and works at least six days a week.

The concern that the intent may not be merely to make matters easier for elderly who employ foreign workers stems from an explanation accompanying the bill, which states that 20 years after the original law was passed, it is necessary to investigate "whether paying the home-care allowance in money will more effectively realize the goal for which the allowance is intended. Therefore, we are proposing to conduct an experiment accompanied by research, to examine an alternative method for efficiently realizing the provision of home-care services."

The bill is designated as an emergency measure that will be in effect for two years.

Caregiver agencies in the past have expressed strong opposition to the concept embodied in the new legislation. Yesterday Doron Raz, representing the union of caregiver service providers, said that not only will such a policy not lower the expense of employing foreign caregivers, but the elderly will have to cover the workers' social benefits and other employment expenses, which are currently paid in part by the agencies. According to Raz, the state will also lose the ability it now has to supervise caregivers properly through the service providers.

The NII claims that the agencies rarely exercise any oversight or training of foreign workers and that they are receiving money for nothing.