About 5% of families in Moldova spend 40% of incomes on healthcare

The people’s medical expenses, outside the mandatory medical insurance policy, are a problem in Moldova, the head of the National Health Management Center Mihai Ciocanu said at a conference. “These payments may not be high, but not all the people can cover them and therefore ignore doctors’ prescriptions and use the few drugs whose price is partly covered by the state,” Ciocanu said, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. He referred to certain studies according to which a Moldovan household spends an average of 160 lei a year on healthcare, though the members of the family have insurance policy. The poorer families spend 41 lei a year, while the wealthy ones - 350 lei. 72.2% of the money on healthcare services is spent on medications, 10% – on dental treatment, 9.6% – on hospital services, 7.9% – on ambulatory consultations, laboratory tests and analyses. “In about 5% of the families, the medical expenses make up 40% of the total expenditure. These costs for the families where a member is seriously ill or several members have to receive treatment or follow a regimen are catastrophic and thus these families are permanently on the verge of ruin, Mihai Ciocanu said. According to him, any politician with a sound judgment, analyzing these figures would realize that the list of drugs paid for by the state should be extended. Otherwise, the health policy owners will never be satisfied with the mandatory health insurance system. Mihai Ciocanu also said that the people cover 48% of the costs for healthcare. 52% of the costs are paid from the state budget and by the National Health Insurance House, including from the people’s monthly contributions to the National Obligatory Health Insurance Funds. Before introducing the mandatory health insurance policy, the direct payments made by the people were larger and constituted 62-63%.