Prague, Sept 10 (CTK) – The public health insurance system in the Czech Republic ended with a profit of 5.9 billion crowns in 2016, and its revenues were 265 billion crowns, including 62.2 billion from the state budget, according to a report that the Czech government is to deal with on Monday.
In spite of the profit, the system is not sustainable in the long term due to population ageing and modern, high-cost treatment, the report says.
The public health insurance system remains vulnerable to negative developments, such as the return of even a moderate recession. Its effectiveness and stability needs to be improved, the report writes.
Most of the revenues are compulsory health insurance payments from employers, entrepreneurs and the self-employed. Last year, this amounted to 199.5 billion crowns, which is 10.8 billion more than in 2015 thanks to the economic growth.
The state covers the insurance payments on behalf of children, pensioners, the unemployed and others. These groups in fact form more than half of the country’s population (5.96 million people).
The state monthly payments per one economically unproductive person have been increasing: it was 845 crowns in 2015, 870 crowns in 2016, 930 crowns this year and 970 crowns in 2018.
Next year the state is to contribute 69.3 billion crowns to the public health insurance account, while this year it is to be 65.8 billion crowns.
The total expenditures of the healthcare system were 258.9 billion crowns in 2016. Health insurance companies paid 24,794 crowns per patient on average last year. The running costs of the companies were about six billion crowns. The companies spent 97.1 percent of the expenditures on healthcare services.
This year, 270.3 billion crowns are to be spent to cover the costs of the healthcare services.
