Reform health care or plug gaps with cash, insurer warns government

If reforms are not carried out next year, the state will have to bail out the Czech healthcare system in 2011, says the head of the country’s biggest insurer VZP. Pavel Horák told Tuesday’s edition of Hospodařské noviny that otherwise there was a danger limits would have to be placed on free health care. VZP is set to end this year with a deficit of CZK six to eight billion, a shortfall that is likely to be repeated at the end of 2010.