Public pressure prompted Bulgaria’s cash-strapped government on Wednesday to drop plans to raise health insurance payments and seek other ways to support its under-funded hospitals.
Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s cabinet voted last week to increase monthly health payments for all citizens by 2.0 percentage points to 10 percent of their income in order to pump more money into healthcare. But unions and business associations slammed the move, saying it would not improve the quality of healthcare and would instead put extra strain on the private sector and hike unemployment.
Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said the government would instead make some 150,000 public sector employees, including the army and the police, start making their own social security contributions. The reform would have to be adopted by parliament. The government currently pays all social security instalments for its civil servants, who are in turn banned from striking and taking second jobs.
“Everyone should be equal before the law and pay for themselves,” Djankov said, adding that the new move would save the budget some 150 million leva (76 million euros, 105 million dollars). But the new measure, which will cut salaries in the public sector by 12 percent, also sparked an outcry, with army and police across the country vowing to stage peaceful demonstrations.
Bulgaria has so far avoided big budget deficits, which experts see as dangerous for the stability of its currency board arrangement with the International Monetary Fund that ties the lev to the euro. But budget revenues have fallen sharply over the first two months of 2010, posing a serious strain on the government to balance the budget.
Sofia, March 17, 2010 (AFP)
