Prague, Dec 2 (CTK) – The Czech Social Democrats (CSSD) want to introduce higher taxation of some firms to gain more finances for the healthcare sector and they will reject any cash fees paid by patients in their campaign before the late 2017 elections, daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) writes Friday.
The centre-left government of the CSSD, ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) abolished the fees for prescriptions in pharmacies and for visiting a doctor as of 2015, in harmony with its policy statement. The daily fee for hospital stay was abolished as of 2014 and only the 90-crown fee for after hours care has been preserved.
The CSSD wants to succeed in the next general election with the promise that patients will not have to pay more for medical care and the new Health Minister Miloslav Ludvik, who replaced Svatopluk Nemecek (both CSSD) in the post earlier this week, will be the face promoting these slogans.
It is noteworthy that when Ludvik still headed the Prague-Motol University Hospital, the largest hospital in the country, he said people ought to pay more for common drugs and medications so that there is more money for the treatment of serious illnesses, the paper writes.
Being a CSSD minister, Ludvik cannot say this anymore, however. “I believe there is no space to take money away from people. No space at all,” he told HN.
Ludvik said it is reasonable to spend more money from the state budget on the healthcare sector. The CSSD wants to introduce higher taxation of selected firms to gain the necessary finances. “How many firms pay taxes in the Czech Republic? What is the tax rate concerning dividends? We in the CSSD say this is the money that must be taken and poured into sectors such as health care and education,” he said.
Ludvik says it is the voters who will decide whether patients want to pay more or not. “This is a political issue. And none of the paths is wrong,” he said.
The Social Democrats want medical treatment to be almost fully covered from the obligatory health insurance system in which all citizens participate. In their focus on making the patients fees as low as possible, they mainly react to the ANO movement that has been more popular than they are and whose leader, Finance Minister Andrej Babis, has the ambition to become the next prime minister, the paper writes.
Ludvik said ANO wants to increase the direct payments made by patients and reintroduce fees for a hospital stay.
The direct financial participation of patients in Czech health care is one of the lowest in Europe. The latest available data from 2013 show that patients in the Czech Republic directly covered 16 percent of the costs, while in Slovakia it was 23 percent and in Hungary nearly 40 percent.
Despite this, the CSSD has always resolutely opposed any increase in the cash fees. Former health minister Nemecek admitted half a year ago that patients should start covering part of the costs of some treatment. “The CSSD believes that the basis must be funded from public sources. However, I am not against the idea of private finances being possible in at least some treatment,” he said.
But later on Nemecek did not deviate from the CSSD principle of “free health care” anymore. On the contrary, he proposed that children and pensioners pay for medications even less than now – and Ludvik wants to push this plan through, HN writes.
Ludvik also rejected the possibility that people could pay extra money for above-standard care, either in form of additional commercial health insurance or of direct payments for particular treatment. He argued that Czechs are not rich enough to afford this. Once their salaries are four times higher than they are now, this will be an option, he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Belobradek (KDU-CSL) said his party has a different view of healthcare fees. He said patients need to cover part of the costs by themselves but the sum must be reasonable.
Belobradek noted that the Christian Democrats wanted to reduce the fees paid for visiting doctors, hospital stays and prescriptions, but that the CSSD and ANO pushed through their complete abolition.
Babis later regretted that the fees were abolished and now he would like patients to pay more.
“If we want to maintain modern health care, the financial participation of patients must be gradually increased,” lower house health committee chairman Rostislav Vyzula (ANO) said.
The Social Democrats also want to win more voters by pressuring on both Czech and foreign companies operating in the country to raise wages of their employees.
($1=25.465 crowns)
