Health insurance and care providers end year with losses

Public health insurance providers are finishing the year with approximately 10 billion crowns in losses. Insurance providers should receive around 10 billion crowns more next year, but healthcare providers are also likely to loose around four billion due to the weakening of the crown and the increased Value Added Tax for medicine. The Constitutional Court recently struck down the law that imposed the 100-crown daily fees for hospital stays and the 30-crown co-payments at the doctors’ offices, which will decrease the yearly fee income of healthcare providers from 5.5 billion to 180 million crowns. Jiří Rusnok’s caretaker government gave 800 million crowns extra to health insurance providers this year, but doctors and hospitals are warning that if the new government does not find a solution to the situation, health care may need to be limited and some hospitals may even close next year.