New Health Minister: There are financial reserves in health care system
The Social Democrat MP Jozef Kubinyi was appointed as new Health Minister on Wednesday. He replaced his party colleague, Marie Souckova, who was sacked earlier this week for failing to produce a sound reform plan for the health sector. Minister Kubinyi takes over at a difficult time. The health care system is heavily indebted and the parties of the ruling coalition differ in their views as to how to bring more money into it.
"Many people put a lot of effort into the reform plan drafted by my predecessor. Without doubt, it presents a good analysis of the symptoms and their causes. What I found inadequate was the proposed remedy. It is too general and I don't like some of the concrete steps the plan proposes. I have a clear vision of what a re-drafted version should look like but, first of all, I need to put together my team. So, there is nothing I want to add or take away from the existing reform plan, I just want to redraw its conclusions."
The right-of-centre opposition and even some MPs from the government ranks are calling for more costs of health care to be covered by patients themselves, a demand that goes against the left-of-centre principles of the largest party in the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats. Health insurance companies want the state to compensate them more for the costs of treating children, old-age pensioners and the unemployed - those who need the most care and contribute the least into the system. In short, critics of the system say it needs more money. The new Health Minister says the money is already available in the system - it just needs to be found.
"At the moment, it is not necessary to look for ways to bring more money into the system, be it by increasing patients' participation, through direct payments, or by raising health insurance premiums. Instead, we should try to make the system more efficient. I am convinced there are reserves and I see my task in finding those reserves and making the Czech health care system efficient. The current long-term crisis is not a medical crisis but a financial crisis. If we do not solve it, it might eventually turn into a crisis of the actual health care system."
