Healthcare Minister Tanya Andreeva said the government will discuss possible future increases in health insurance contributions of 8% to 9% of wages. Such an unpopular move, however, is in way to solve the financial problems of the healthcare system. Neither will it improve the quality of medical care.
At the end of 2007 the Minister of Healthcarefrom the tripartite coalition Radoslav Gaydarski wanted contributions to be raised from the then 6% to between 8% to 10% on the grounds that the industry would blossom and especially the service to children, pensioners, unemployed and disadvantaged may be improved. What happened is that the approved by the then cabinet only 8% were money pumped into the wrong direction without any effect. The idea was to raise additional funds to increase the operating span of private health insurance funds to cover a set of activities that are not paid by the state. But that did not happen.
A real increase in health insurance contributions by one percentage point would
have significant financial implications.
for the revenue of the National Health Insurance Fund, but the bitter cup will be for others to drink. Calculations show that the with an average insurance income 651 levs (data for May 2013) and a total of 2.77 million people employed and paying health insurance contributions, the annual revenue of the fund would increase by more than 216 million levs. According to Minister Andreeva this money can cover dental packages for children and allow them to become free. Surely the professional organization of dentists have the right to insist on additional funds for payment of services to children since over a period of nine years the deductions for dental care fell from 9% to 3% of the total cost of the healthcare fund.
However, the sum is tremendous for those who will pay it. In any case, this will be an occasion for the majority of small and medium businesses to shift to the shadow side of the economy or to cut staff to survive. A worker with a salary of 650 levs will also feel a severe burden from any increase.
Logically, unions stood against any increase in contributions. Vice President of the Confederation of Workers Ivan Kokalov noted that the move is inappropriate without people’s incomes having increased. Kokalov believes it is time to see the structure of health-insured citizens. In other words – which of them are still in Bulgaria, whose contributions may be covered by social funds and what people can afford to pay but do not. Several governments in a row, however, stubbornly refused to implement workable scheme to increase the collection of contributions. Recently, members of GERB party offered a bill to amend the Penal Code, which provides up to eight years in prison for employers who evade security payments. In cases of unpaid sums of over 12,000 levs the suggested punishment is up to eight years in prison and confiscation of property. The proposed change now, however explicitly states that employers are not held criminally liable.
They attack the effects but improperly and fail to attack the causes which determine the magnitude of this phenomenon, said Dimitar Brankov of the Bulgarian Industrial Association.
There’s no question that those who hide income in the grey economy should be pressed firmly, but such severe sentences seem too ineffective, either. On the other hand, is too blatant to fill the gap in providing healthcare services by asking unemployed people to pay 16.50 levs per month, experts comment.
So comments from GERB, that the present power intends to load additional burden to accurate payers instead of making over 1.2 million Bulgarians without health insurance to pay them, have some point. However the former governor of the National Healthcare Fund, Dr. Plamen Tsekov said that the budget of the institution loses 500 million levs a year from uninsured but GERB leader Boyko Borissov and his team did nothing to change the negative balance.
Actually losses from working people who don’t pay social security contributions are probably small. Analysis of the National Insurance Institute of the gross domestic product in 2012 showed that 3.28 million people produce something for the Bulgarian economy against 2.77 million insured. This means that over 511,000 Bulgarians work iilegally. If we take as an indicator the average insurable income, it appears that there are approximately 318 million levs unpaid from these people.
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