BRATISLAVA, September 26, (WEBNOVINY) — The project aiming at the introduction of the unliterary public health insurance system from the workroom of the Health Ministry may be at odds with the Constitution and goes against the European legislation. It brings neither benefits to patients nor does it secure lacking finances for the health care sector, thinks Director General of the private health insurer Dovera Martin Kultan. “This project is not a standard project that is to improve the health care system,“ he maintains.
Also another of the two private health insurers, the company Union is thoroughly analyzing the material that the Health Ministry published regarding the plan of introducing the system of a single health insurer. Its spokeswoman Judita Smatanova said that Union’s attitude has not changed and they still want to preserve plurality in the health insurance system. The insurer insists that no relevant reasons exist why the system should change. They believe that one health insurer on the market will have negative impacts for the state in the form of higher costs and will also harm citizens who will get lower quality health care.
The Health Ministry has already prepared a plan proposing how the country should switch from the current system with private and pubic health insurers to a single public health insurer. The ministry has sent the material for interdepartmental review. It leaves in the game three options for establishing one health insurance company, including the takeover into administration of private insurers’s clients, acquisition of shares or selected assets or expropriation of private health insurance companies. Based on an analysis, the ministry came to the conclusion that the best method is the transfer of shares of private health insurers. “As the only one of the analyzed variants it enables the state to gain absolute control over all items of business of a non-state insurer,” suggests the ministry. It states as well that by acquiring full managerial control over private health insurance companies the state will gain control over legal disputes that the private insurers have initiated against it.
An audit should give an answer to the question about the value of private insurers. In the event that the insurer will not agree with it, the state will be able to evaluate such insurance company without an audit, even based on incomplete information. If the acquisition method fails, expropriation should follow, the material states.
SITA
