ASTANA – The head of the clinic of National Medical Holding Viktor Madjuga recently explained the reasons for the introduction of mandatory social health insurance.
He called that measure a new system of social protection, stressing that it is practiced all over the world.
“The need for the introduction of compulsory health insurance is determined by many aspects. There are global challenges for the health care system not only here, but throughout the world. It is the growth of non-communicable diseases, health system costs, new technologies, the price of drugs and the cost of treatment. All these affect the increase in the cost of medical services,” said Madjuga.
In addition, according to him, due to the increase in life expectancy in the country, it is necessary “to plan an increase in the expenses for the protection of the health of citizens.”
Madjuga also talked about statistics related to state health care costs.
“Unfortunately, in our country, unlike the developed countries, health care costs account for only 3.5 percent of GDP. For comparison, the same costs in Russia are 5 percent and in developed countries are 8 to 12 percent,” he said.
The obligatory payments to the fund of social health insurance will start next year.
At the moment 15 categories of citizens are exempted from the payments. Twelve of them are socially vulnerable and the rest are military personnel, employees of special government and law enforcement agencies.
Socially vulnerable groups are children, mothers with many children, veterans of World War II, the disabled, unemployed, students, women on maternity leave, pensioners and sentenced prisoners and those in detention centres.
