Opposition vows to inject extra € 3.4 billion into Hungarian healthcare

The united opposition plans to spend an extra 1,200 billion forints (€ 3.4 billion) in four years on Hungarian health care, its prime ministerial candidate told a forum on Friday.

The extra funding would reform health care in line with European market methods rather than operating a centralised “communist system”, Péter Márki-Zay told a press conference in front a district health clinic in Budapest.

He accused the Fidesz government of regarding health care purely as a business and running public health care into the ground so that the only option remaining to the sick would be to use hospitals owned by “Fidesz oligarchs”.

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The politician vowed to revamp Hungary’s health care and to fund it through a single national insurance model.

He said patients waiting more than six months for surgery would be referred to a private provider and the state would pick up the bill.

Márki-Zay claimed to be in possession of “inside information” suggesting that Fidesz planned to privatise health care after the election.

He said Hungarians currently pay 30 percent of their health-care costs out of their own pocket, which, he added, was “the highest rate in the EU”.

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Funding for Hungary’s health-care system, he said, would increase to 7 percent of gross national product — the EU average — from 4.5 percent last year in four years.

Márki-Zay also promised health professionals a “significant salary increase”.

In response, ruling Fidesz said in a statement that “the Left would reintroduce pay-for health services”. They said the opposition plans were in fact aimed at “drastic privatisation” in the health sector.

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Source: MTI