Védegylet - 10 point declaration of First Aid to Social Health Insurance

Let us stay together! Let us save the social health insurance system! We want a new health care system, we want change, but not of this type!

10 points & our recommendations

First Aid to Social Health Insurance
A Declaration in 10 points
Let us stay together!
Let us save the social health insurance system!

1) We want a new health care system, we want change, but not of this type!

The present health care system in Hungary is bleeding from from a thousand wounds. This is apparent. We need a new approach. To create a system in which all the patients count, in which it is realistic to expect quality in service, in which the people working in it can be proud of their accomplisment and they are honoured for their work. The government’s schemes to introduce privatisation into health insurance are not leading to it. We can firmly declare that their new system will bear little and unpredictable gains, but will involve enormous risks and predictable harmful consequences.

2) All patients are equal!

Everybody should have the right of equal access to the best possible health care treatment, irrespective of their social standing and income. If we can preserve the core value of having a social health insurance system based on a national risk community, then all this can be ensured.

3) We do not want to be experimented on/to be guine pigs!

This is what the debate is really all about: experimenting with a new profit-oriented system instead of maintaining social health insurance. The rest of it is just pseudo-discussion: whether to have a one-party or a multi-party insurance system is not to the point. Profit-oriented health systems exist only in the Netherlands and Slovakia, and only since 2006. Evidence about the benefits is little and not convincing. Evidence from Chile and the United States is abundant and rather appaling.

4) Patients should be treated as people in need and not as buyers!

Health care is not a market place, but a matter of life and death. Markets can flourish in several sectors but not in sickness insurance. Any profit oriented business venture will have the drive to make profit above all, and the only way to do so will happen through getting rid of the ill or saving on necessary medical treatment.

5) Health insurance should insure health!

Profit oriented health insurance companies will want their profit, and not our health. Their primary interest will be (1) to get rid of patients who they would need to spend too much on, as chronic patients account for most of the spending in health care, (2) reduce the scope of financed medical treatment, (3) save on patients by denying them necessary treatment on legal or medical ground. Profit oriented health insurance firms have no iterest in prevention, as it can yield only unpredictable gains and can be profitable only on the long run.

6) More funds needed in health care!

In the new scheme of profit oriented isurance companies no new funds will be brought into the system, and investments will continue to be financed by the state. On the contrary, financial resources will shrink because of new overhead costs for the insurers and their profit will be taken out of the system. Waiting lists will continue to exist, therefore under-the-counter payments will not disappear, and doctors’ salaries will not increase.

7) Free choice of doctors should be guaranteed!

Should this cease or get restricted, competition will be curbed in health care, no matter what the goverment proclaims. To refer to ‘enhanced competition’ is even more false, as the insurers will not be able to have hospitals compete.

8) We will not be taken in by ‘gurantees’ from the goverment!

They are not enough to ward off risks, but are more like carrots. Neither the per capita system, nor the obligatory admission of the insured or the formal sate majority in ownership can appease those concerned. Management rights would be exercised by the private insurers, the insurance package would be reduced in scope, and the system would save on the severely ill – this is no guarantee for quality health care.

9) The government should not take irrevocable steps!

The international agreement on the liberalisation of services (GATS) spells out regulations which can easily make the proposed privatisation of health insurance in Hungary irrevocable, even if the country should decide to undertake that step.

10) We need reforms in health care that are well prepared! We reject changes made hastily and without proper social debate or consensus!

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS:

- Let us preserve the unified social health insurance system!

- We need social control and transparent health insurance!

- We need protection of consumers’ rights and quality control procedures in health care! A network of insurance doctors should be set up!

- We need clearly defined medical protocols!

- Data from comparative analysis about the operation of medical institutes should be made publicly available for the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund (Országos Egészségügyi Pénztár)!

- Investments should be directed to treat regional inequalities in health care!

- Doctors’ salaries should be consolidated, and legal and administrative measures should be introduced to fight under-the-counter payments.

- We need a true ‘health care’ system, not one that only treats patients! Prevention and promoting a healthy way of life should also be prioritised when financial resources are allocated.