Slovak News Back to the news
KDH Wants to Introduce Maximum Expenses on Health for Pensioners
Monday 19 April 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, April 19 (TASR) - The Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) wants to introduce maximum limits for additional payments on medications and health services for specific groups of society, KDH chairman Jan Figel said at a press conference on Monday.
According to KDH, pensioners and severely handicapped people shouldn't pay surcharges exceeding 2-percent of their income or pension for health. This means that a pensioner who gets, for example, €300 a month should have guaranteed that he or she wouldn't have to pay more than €6 for health services and medications per month. "People with the lowest pensions sometimes pay additional fees for health services reaching up to 15-20 percent of their income," said KDH vice-chair Ivan Uhliarik.
If KDH managed to introduce the measure, the difference between the 2-percent limit and the real payments of pensioners would be repaid by the health-insurance company.
A similar system already works in the Czech Republic, where the health-insurance company once a year repays pensioners expenditures on the health-care services if they exceed €100. About 10,000 people used this option in the Czech Republic last year. "Based on this experience, we reckon that this will cost about €5 million in Slovakia, which health-insurance companies will be able to pay without problems," he said, adding that the repayments should be done on a quarterly basis.
Also in the health field, KDH proposes increasing the hourly wage for emergency service employees and introduce electronic insurance cards.
According to KDH representatives, the biggest problem of the Slovak healthcare system is that the measures taken in this sphere don't have a clear concept and the financial sources are not used efficiently. "The ministry has been working without systematic, targeted and conceptual measures for the past four years. Even though there is more money in the healthcare system, the situation is getting worse," said KDH vice-chair Maria Sabolova.
"Our healthcare system is not healthy. It has a lot of sick parts," stressed Figel. "Hospitals are mostly burdened with debts. Their technical state is deteriorating and medical workers have been leaving for abroad," he specified.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
