Persons from needy families will benefit from free health insurance

The persons from disadvantaged families entitled to social support will be provided with free health insurance. The Parliament adopted a relevant bill at its Tuesday’s sitting, Info-Prim Neo reports. Deputy Minister of Health Mircea Buga said that the families in need should be socially supported, including by providing them with health insurance. “The members of poor families will obtain guaranteed access to the medical and pharmaceutical services included in the common obligatory insurance program. The necessary money will be allocated from the mandatory health insurance fund for 2009, which is by 30% or 778 million lei larger than last year,” the deputy minister said. Buga also said that the largest part of the persons classified as disadvantaged – the pensioners, invalids, the unemployed, the persons that look after ill people confined to bed - already received free insurance policies. The bill was drafted at the initiative of President Vladimir Voronin, who demanded that it is examined as an emergency until the term of the present legislature expires. The MPs of the Moldova Noastra Alliance and the Democratic Party said that the bill is a populist measure promoted in the run-up to elections. The social benefit is a new type of social support provided to needy families, depending on the aggregate average monthly income of the family. The families where at least one member has disability degree receive social benefit from October 1, 2008, while the families with small children – from January 1, 2009. Other groups of beneficiaries will be provided with social benefit from July 1, 2009.