Polish MPs dilute govt’s health reform plans

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Poland’s lower house of parliament watered down the minority government’s health reform plans on Tuesday by passing an opposition bill on financing the cash-strapped sector.

Backed by the rightist Law and Justice party, it replaces a government bill rejected in February and removes the option of changing hospitals into public companies, which may have paved the way for the most indebted clinics to go bankrupt.

The government earmarked 2.2 billion zlotys ($709.7 million) from this year’s budget in one-off aid to hospitals, but wanted the subsidy to be part of a wider restructuring programme that may have led to closures of inefficient state hospitals.

Health minister Marek Balicki said Tuesday’s vote effectively gives the hospitals aid without any guarantee of restructuring, which would avoid debts from piling up again. He vowed to seek to overturn the vote in the upper house.

“The new regulation is strange, incoherent and will require much work in the Senate (upper house),” said Balicki, quoted by PAP news agency.

Poland’s underfunded and inefficient state health sector has debts totalling around 6 billion zlotys, despite a government write-off of 8.4 billion zlotys in debt in 1999.

Analysts say the failure of the government’s health bill highlights the weakness of Prime Minister Marek Belka’s cabinet just months ahead of parliamentary elections the ruling left is widely expected to lose. 

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