BRATISLAVA, July 8, (SITA) — Health insurance companies will be able to freely use their profits from public health insurance only if they meet two conditions. The first is the mandatory use of profits to create a reserve fund of up to 20 percent of the capital, the other is mandatory formation of technical reserves to finance planned health care for insured patients on waiting lists. This is part of the amendment to the Law on Health Insurance passed by parliament on Friday. The plenum failed to support an amending proposal of Tibor Bastrnak (MOST-HID) toughening the first condition. The MOST-HID lawmaker wanted to make it obligatory for the insurer to use at least 80 percent of the achieved profit for creation of the reserve fund until the fund does not reach the limit defined in the statutes, but at least up to 3 percent of collected premiums after redistribution.
The coalition however is not fully satisfied with the approved legislation. KDH’s Maria Sabolova thinks that it will still be necessary to limit the formation of profit also in other cases. She said that it should be in the interest of lawmakers that all public sources were used for patients’ treatment. According to the head of the Parliamentary Health Care Committee Viliam Novotny (SDKU) one solution would be widening of the number of diagnoses for which waiting lists are created. It is better for patients he continued if health insurers do not keep money on their accounts but use them for patients who thus do not wait that long for treatment.
The opposition harshly criticized the amendment arguing that the free use of profit, though with restrictions, in a situation when the Slovak heath sector is undernourished is unjustified. Opposition deputies also spoke about reckless efforts to sponge on public sources. SaS deputy Peter Kalist however underscored that following the Constitutional Court’s decision the situation emerged when health insurers can use their profits without restrictions and do not even have to pay taxes on it. The approved amendment however introduces limitations while by not supporting the amendment opposition deputies directly say that health insurers keep the whole profit and do not pay tax on it.
At the beginning of this year the Constitutional Court ruled that health insurance companies operating in Slovakia do not have to return the generated profit back to the health sector but can decide on its use independently. The court judged on a complaint of a group of parliamentary deputies who contested constitutionality of some provisions of the law on health insurance companies, which introduced the ban forbidding private health insurers from keeping their profits, a measure pushed through by the government of Robert Fico three years ago. The Constitutional Court said that the contested provisions are at odds with the Slovak constitution and international regulations and conventions.
SITA