site.btaParliament Rejects No-confidence Motion Against Government over Its Policy in Healthcare Sector

Parliament Rejects No-confidence Motion Against Government over Its Policy in Healthcare Sector

Sofia, February 19 (BTA) -  Parliament Friday rejected with 130 votes against and 5 abstentions the first motion for a vote of no-confidence against this government of Boyko Borissov over its policy in the healthcare sector.

The motion was initiated by 69 MPs of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) - Left Bulgaria, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and two independents.

GERB, the Reformist Bloc, the Patriotic Front, ABV, and three independent MPs voted against the motion.

The vote of no-confidence was supported by 80 MPs of BSP-Left Bulgaria, MRF and Ataka, as well as three independent MPs. The members of the Bulgarian Democratic Centre abstained.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov did not attend the voting because he is abroad at the moment.

After the voting, Health Minister Peter Moskov commented for journalists that "it is easier to be against than to be right". In his words, the majority reconfirmed that it backs the Government's governance programme. This year one of the Health Ministry's and the Government's goals are the rules for upgrading the health insurance system with voluntary health insurance associations as a second pillar, he noted.

Moskov admitted that part of the arguments he had heard during the debates, including by representatives of the ruling majority, were useful because they concern clearly scheduled actions in the sphere of the health insurance model.

He noted, however, that he would not back away from the policy on medicinal products, nor would he make a compromise with the change of the healthcare network's infrastructure, the mode of funding, and the requirement that the National Health Insurance Fund pay for results.

"There should be improvement, a lesson learned from badly constructed administrative acts, but not a change in the policy because these are reasonable policies: to have more medicinal products, these to be at lower prices, with smaller co-payments by the patients, to continue transferring workload from hospital to pre-hospital care, which is an actual process," Moskov argued. At the same time, it should be clear which infrastructure meets the needs of patients, and not certain citizens' business ideas, he added.