site.bta 2017 Draft Budget of National Health Insurance Fund Passed at First Reading

2017 Draft Budget of National Health Insurance Fund Passed at First Reading

Sofia, November 17 (BTA) - Parliament Thursday passed at first reading the 2017 National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) Budget Bill in a 98-51 vote with five abstentions.

The draft budget was supported by the parliamentary groups of GERB, the Reformist Bloc, and Bulgarian Democratic Centre-Popular Union. Part of the MPs from the Patriotic Front voted in favour, others abstained. The Bulgarian Socialist Party, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and all of ABV MPs save one who abstained, voted against. Ataka did not take part in the voting.

The 2017 draft budget of the NHIF provides for revenue and transfer amounting to 3,452,816,000 leva. A total of 3,032,000,500 leva are set aside for health insurance payments, which is 222.8 million leva more than in 2016.

The draft budget was drawn up with a health insurance contribution of 8 per cent and an expected number of insured people of about 6.2 million. The health insurance contribution is divided 60 to 40 between employer and insured person.

During the debate of the bill outgoing Health Minister Peter Moskov said that the financial framework is better than last year's by 250 million leva. The philosophy behind the draft budget is increasing the financing of the out-of-hospital medical aid, Moskov said.

Chairperson of the parliamentary Healthcare Committee, GERB MP Daniela Daritkova, urged for reason and warned against "letting loose a budget bacchanalia". Daritkova said that the NHIF 2017 budget guarantees stability and an opportunity to develop the health insurance model. She disagreed with the planned cap whereby 90 per cent of the funds in the NHIF reserve to be expended for medicines and hospital care, and committed herself to move to drop the provision.

Patriotic Front MP Dimiter Bairaktarov demanded dropping the provision concerning anticipatory enforcement of orders on termination of contracts with medical care providers arguing that the text opens an opportunity for "settling of accounts with uncomfortable medical establishments".

Martin Dimitrov, MP of the Reformist Bloc, too expressed concerns that greater deficits in the state budget, the NHIF budget and the budget of the public social insurance may be allowed between the two readings of the bills.

Bulgarian Socialist Party MP Emil Rainov noted that the revenues of the NHIF budget are underestimated on account of the projected lower number of insured people. He said that the Socialists will not support the NHIF budget bill, nor make motions between the two readings.

Movement for Rights and Freedoms MP Hassan Ademov saw no problem in failing to adopt the NHIF budget but stressed such may occur if "populism thrives" between the two readings of the bill.

ABV Movement MP Georgi Kyuchoukov said the NHIF budget is imbalanced. The MP said that although the budget was increased, 4.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product are still an absolutely insufficient amount. Kyuchoukov said that the budget has positive developments too, such as the increase in health insurance payments and in specialized medical care.