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Bulgaria ups healthcare taxes as doctors protest
Last Updated: 2010-03-08 15:15:14 -0400 (Reuters Health)
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria said on Monday it would raise healthcare taxes to pump an extra 350 million levs ($244.9 million) into its decaying medical system, after a spate of public protests about its parlous state.
* Govt to raise health insurance payments to 10 percent
* To spend additional $245 mln for healthcare
* Doctors protest over delayed pay
The centre-right government will vote on Wednesday to raise health insurance levies by 2 percentage points to 10 percent of an individual's income.
The Balkan country's general practitioners plan widespread protests on Tuesday in the capital Sofia and many other cities over delayed payments for January, their union said.
The government, eager to defuse the growing discontent, said doctors would be paid outstanding funds by Wednesday. However, the doctors' union said doctors would not work until the payments were transferred.
Bulgarian national radio said patients in the central city of Veliko Tarnovo, where general practitioners are already protesting, are being refused treatment unless they personally pay doctors.
Bulgaria, hard hit by the economic downturn which put an end to 12 years of growth, voted an austerity budget for 2010 that significantly cut spending.
Health spending for hospitals was slashed by 24 percent to 709 million levs in 2010. The EU's poorest member only sets aside about 4.0 percent of GDP on healthcare each year, nearly half the proportion spent in many Western nations.
Years of post-communist neglect have left many hospitals understaffed, heavily indebted, lacking modern equipment and even medicines.
The cabinet, which took office last July, has pledged to launch an ambitious healthcare overhaul but was forced to delay a planned closure of inefficient hospitals after growing public resistance to the painful reforms.
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