Romania: cheaper health insurance for the rich?
Acting Romanian Finance Minister Dan Vîlceanu has called for a cap on health insurance contributions for the rich on the grounds that everyone receives the same treatment. Romania's health budget is already one of the lowest in the EU, and the country suffers from serious healthcare deficiencies. The media are therefore critical of the idea.
Money already lacking on all fronts
An even smaller health budget will have devastating consequences for patients, Libertatea writes in outrage:
“Putting a limit on health insurance contributions for top earners would translate into even less money for the health sector, meaning that the quality of health services would decline even further. But just a second: decline? Can things actually get worse? In 2019 Romania was already the country with the highest mortality rate from treatable disease-related causes [in the EU], according to the WHO. ... For every 100,000 inhabitants, 208 people died because they did not receive adequate medical treatment.”
No prosperity without social cohesion
There are good reasons why such a proposal has never gone through in major democracies, warns Ziarul Financiar:
“The US taxes progressively. Germany and France tax progressively. In all these countries, which could serve as models for us, the richest pay the state a little more than the poor do. And neither the US nor France nor Germany are socialist states. They have understood that there can be no social cohesion without social equilibrium. That's why the rich have to pay more. Because social balance is the key to their prosperity.”