Bulgarian MPs Pass Overhaul of Healthcare Budget

Health Minister Petar Moskov (R) and Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov (R) also attended Parliament's session on Tuesday to take part in debates on the state budget and healthcare expenditures. Photo by BGNES

Lawmakers have approved the allocation of additional BGN 100 M to the budget of Bulgaria's health fund for 2014.

Half of these funds are earmarked for the payment of hospital services, a task for which the National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK) is in charge of making transfers.

Another BGN 25 M are set aside for medicine prescribed for home treatment, while another 10 M are to be spent on medicaments used in hospitals.

This is the second update of the NZOK's financial framework after the previous legislature voted to grant BGN 225 M more to the fund at its last session before it was dissolved on August 6.

Despite that move the health fund announced it was still finding it difficult to make payments. Prior to the first overhaul it had estimated it would need about BGN 328 M to make it until the end of the year, otherwise it could be left without money and no funding to transfer to hospitals and to foot the bills for oncological medicaments.

MPs earlier debated on amendments to the state budget proposed to the recently-appointed Council of Ministers, but a final legislative decision is yet to be taken.

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