AmCham Moldova, on behalf of Medpark International Hospital, organized the round table “Possibilities of facultative health insurance”, aimed at identification of the factors which impede facultative health insurance development and ways of their elimination.
The discussion was build around the following issue:
In the light of the socio-economic development Republic of Moldova takes certain steps in promoting economic agents of the country to expand social packages provided to their employees within the context of the current employment relationships.
Assuming some financial commitments which compensate social needs of the employees the entrepreneur is entitled to expect the attenuation of the tax burden on behalf of the state to the extent to which the costs were incurred for the social support of the population.
Given the development of paid medical services in the Republic of Moldova aimed at providing public access to high-tech modern methods of treatment and taking into account substantial costs of such treatment, an acute question rising on the agenda touches reallocation of the costs required for treatment of a specific individual to a part of society by means of using the possibilities of the facultative health insurance via insurance companies operating on the Moldovan market.
Herein a new legislative mechanism is proposed to be developed by the participants of these relations with broad involvement of the employers’ funds aimed at satisfying these needs of the population. This issue is topical for the simple reason that the existing system of the Compulsory Health Insurance and normative acts regulating the issues on allocation of funds administered by National Health Insurance Company (NHIC) do not allow full satisfaction of public needs for covering the expenses of the costly treatment which is offered by a range of the medical institutions since the costs contracted from NHIC by the medical service providers do not cover real treatment costs. This situation is felt most keenly by the patients who in case of need for urgent medical interventions have to wait months for their turn in order to receive the treatment according to health insurance policy provided by NHIC or pay independently for their treatment outside the quotas of NHIC.
Analysis of the current legislation has identified a number of existing factors which impede development of the facultative health insurance and hinder the availability of the employers’ sustained interest to take part in this process. The chief ones among them are presented by the provisions of the Tax Code of Republic of Moldova which consider employer’s insurance premiums in the context of the facultative life and health insurance of the employees as an unnecessary expense of the entrepreneur, on the one hand, and as an income of the employee subject to taxation, on the other hand. Correspondingly, upon the payment of the insurance premium in the amount of x leis the employer should bear additionally tax burden in the amount of _____ % that kills such an insurance scope as the facultative life and health insurance at the threshold of its development. This practice is flawed which if not changed excludes further successful development of the entire segment of the social-economical life in the country.
Changes in the existing tax legislation eliminating the above-mentioned barriers in the foreseeable future should lead to the following positive impacts:
* Appearance of the employers’ interest in acquiring facultative insurance policies for their employees. Outspread of the social packages at the companies which provide additional motivation of the employees and expansion of partnership between the employer and the employees;
* Provision of a wider public access to high-tech and high quality medical services;
* Increasing the competition among the medical institutions in the fight for their patient that will lead to the improvement of the material and technical base of the health care system as a whole;
* Increasing the turnover in the insurance business and expanding the insurance scopes, as well as increasing the profitability of the insurance companies and, respectively, introduction of the indirect taxation of the employer’s expenditures incurred for purpose of acquisition of the facultative insurance in favor of the employees via the incomes of the insurance company;
* Increasing the profitability of the medical institutions and medical service providers that, in its turn, will allow provision of a sustainable economic growth in medicine and, accordingly, increasing the interest in the doctor’s profession, as such.
* And others.
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