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Romania among EU countries with lowest health contributions, yet citizens want quality services
Romania is the EU country with almost the lowest contributions paid to the health care system, yet its citizens want quality services comparable to the ones in other countries that are paying far higher amounts in this direction, which is why a public debate on this topic is needed, president of the National Health Insurance Office (CNAS) Laurentiu Mihai told a press conference on Thursday.
"We are talking of the health system based on social insurance in Romania and the absolutely scarce financing. According to the law, in Romania we have mandatory social health insurance. If I take a look to the fact that there are almost 5 million contributors for rd 19 million persons, I find that the mandatory requirement under the law has kind of disappeared. I believe it is time to ask ourselves as a society if we want social health insurance in Romania, if we want a general-taxation and budget-funded system, how much are we willing to pay for health services and who's to pay for it," the CNAS head said.
Laurentiu Mihai added that Romania is among the countries with the lowest contributions for health, expressed as percentage of incomes, that are charged on the almost smallest revenues in the EU and paid by nearly 5 million persons.
"In exchange, we want quality services comparable to the ones in other states, who pay much more," the CNAS president said.
"The 2018 budget against 2017 provides an increase by 4.5 billion RON, somewhere over 15.5pct. This increase is shared on medical care domains. For instance, we have a 17pct growth for family medicine against last year, almost 2 billion RON. In percentages, it means 7.1pct of the total allocation to medical assistance as against 6.9pct in 2017. Other fields of medical care are also seeing growth. Because of a hot dispute over primary care, I'd reiterate the figures linked to a minimum guaranteed value of the point per capita, for each insured person on their list - 5.6 against 4.8, and per service, there's a rise from 2.2 to 2.6. This is minimum guaranteed value," said Laurentiu Mihai.
The CNAS head also said that the sum allocated to primary care of almost 2 billion RON is integrally used for this sector, which means that even if not all the services are delivered, the sum is effectively spent for primary care, meaning that the point's value goes up."