The health system only benefited from the mandatory health insurance introduced for the population, said experts taking part in a roundtable meeting organized by the Club “Prosanatate” on the occasion of 10 years of the foundation of the National Health Insurance Company (CNAM), Info-Prim Neo reports. CNAM director general Mircea Buga said they managed to solve many problems in the period. “We improved the people’s access to medical services and most of the indicators in the health sector. The population has access to the main medical services, while the public medical institutions obtained financial autonomy,” he stated. Mircea Buga stressed that the mandatory health insurance system is viable and appeared as a result of a concerted effort made by the competent institutions and society. “This model will have a future only if it is supported by all those involved,” he said. Gheorghe Rusu, the first director general of CNAM in 2004-2009, said at the beginning they had to convince the medical personnel that such a system is necessary. “At the start of the 2000, we analyzed the situation in other countries that already introduced compulsory health insurance, but had to adjust the project to the situation in the country, where most of the people are socially deprived and cannot pay large social insurance contributions. We started with a contribution of 4% and then raised it to 7% (paid equally by the employer and employee),” said Gheorghe Rusu. Lawmaker Valentina Stratan, a doctor with a length of service of over 20 years, said that if the mandatory heath insurance hadn’t been implemented, the health system would have gone bankrupt. “At the beginning of 2000, the doctors’ situation was very bad. The salaries hadn’t been paid for 5-6 months in a row and we couldn’t buy even bread. We then were scared of the proposal to introduce the mandatory health insurance system. We did not know what would happen when the patients started to be traded with money collected from insurance premiums. The system started to produce results in several months and we understood that it was functional,” said Valentina Stratan. CNAM was established 10 years ago. The mandatory health insurance system all over Moldova started to be implemented in 2004, after a project had been piloted in Hancesti district.