Bigger contributions for reformed Health Services only

This measure is perceived as one that would aggravate the situation of the business in a difficult time . The position of the BCCI has long ago been stated and we are against pouring money into unreformed sectors . We have not yet seen any real steps towards reforming anything in the system . In 2008 there was a single 2% increase of the health insurance contributions , but nobody checked up where this increased resource went . In this sense, we do not perceive an increase in health insurance contributions as a good move . We would rather see first the reforms and only then allocate more resources; thus the business would know that the money which it additionally contributes and which it might use for many other business affairs , would reach the correct destination . Obviously we are not thinking about the employer’s interests , but about the interests of the people with health insurances, who are presently not many because of the increased unemployment .

For a long time now we have been speaking with concrete facts about the reform . With us at the Chamber is the GS1 Chairmanship – the leading international organization, which develops and implements global standards and decisions . The solutions proposed for reform in the health sector are already working in Hungary and even in Switzerland , where the health service is at high level . For Switzerland, our colleagues recently gave an example with an operation room with the most modern equipment , that the difference in its maintenance cost whether it operates or not, is only 10 % . This leads to the conclusion that operations and teams should be concentrated in certain hospitals only in order to have investment return from the high-level service, even change teams, instead of dissipating resources to many hospitals .

Next, we have to recall what is the quality of the service – time spent in waiting, the legal requirement for general practitioners to examine their patients at least once a year . Thus nobody who is in good health and is not in desperate need of visiting them would go, because they would have to wait, be buggered around, not get notes required .

Not to mention the situation in the hospitals – we were recently at the annual GS1 meeting and there were made known data of Switzerland for their level of the service . The electronic information flow and one-patient follow-through by the general practitioner to the hospital showed 15 % mistakes – no fatal mistakes, mixed up pills or negligence by the personnel . We do not conduct such statistics and we can imagine what the percentage of mistakes will be . Therefore the business will prefer that some reforms be made and only then raise contributions . If these additional resources are given now, in an unreformed sector , there will be many months, even years to pass before the sector sees any real reforms .

In the market economy, the most certain stimulus to do a reform is to promise and provide resources after the sector has been reformed . Thus, promises to reduce burden on the business are bit by bit postponed – first 5 %, then a 2 % decrease of pension contributions , now it is not certain whether this will happen by end of the year. What’s more, the course of putting additional health-insurance burden on the business is lightly assumed.