A decade into mandatory insurances: achievements and setbacks

The lack of information, the low health insurance tax on salary, the low quality of healthcare services and insufficient financing per inhabitant and corruption are the biggest problems of the mandatory health insurance system in Moldova. They were listed by Petru Chitanu, member of the Pro-health Club, at a round table organized on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the National Health Insurance Company (CNAM), Info-Prim Neo reports. “Communication between the authorities of the health system in Moldova and society is essential for people to understand the importance of reforms and the benefits they could obtain as a result. Insufficient information of the beneficiaries of healthcare services leads to their reluctance towards reforms. Moreover, the faulty legislation allows medication providers to infringe delivery deadlines”, explained Petru Chitanu. Parliamentarian Valentina Stratan, a professional doctor, added that drugs were pretty expensive in Moldova and because of the lack of information many people weren’t aware they could obtain compensations for medicines. “There some drugs delivery companies that didn’t fulfill their obligations. They received the money, but didn’t provide the medicines. This is possible because of gaps in legislation. Moldova needs more persons promoting policies in the domain of health”, the MP said. Mircea Buga, head of the CNAM, said that each person’s contribution to the health insurance fund was calculated according to their income, but the reform wasn’t over yet. “We have to work on the system, to determine the incomes of various categories of population in order to set a fixed contribution as everyone has to pay fairly”, said the CNAM director. He announced that the level of public financing should be increased in future so as to reach the results of developed countries in this domain. CNAM also plans to integrate the whole population in the health insurance system, as only 80% of people are currently insured. Sector reforms will be encouraged and the priority will be the satisfaction of patients. The quality of services will be monitored and any informal payments that don’t correspond to the contribution scheme will be punished. Other planed measures to improve the system include informing the people and assuring its transparency. The round table “Achievements and setbacks of the health financing system” was organized by the Pro-health Club in partnership with the CNAM.