Minister of Health and Social Development of Russia Mikhail Zurabov
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Minister Zurabov Has No Prescription for Reform
Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov confirmed at a working meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday that guarantees for high-cost medicine for certain categories of patient have been removed from the additional medicinal guarantee system. The sharp rise in government expenditures within the additional medicinal guarantee system on high-cost medicine in 2005 and 2006 nearly led to the system's collapse and was accompanied by demands for Zurabov's resignation. The decision to remove the highest-cost medicine for budget-supported patients from the system was made in the third year of its existence.
The Ministry of Health and Social Development, which is facing the even larger task of reforming other sectors of health care, is very frequently subject to criticism for the poor planning of the additional medicinal guarantee system. Research on health care reform in the last 15-20 years published in recently by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicates that experience with it has varied greatly.
There is not even a unified tendency in the distribution of private and government expenditures in health care during reform. In Greece, a leader in government cost cutting in medicine, the share of private medicine made up 57 percent of the total share of health care in the GDP. That is comparable with the United States, where the government's share is growing steadily. “Post-socialist” reduction of government spending in health care can be seen in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, while “neo-socialist” rises in spending have occurred Turkey, South Korea and Switzerland. “Euro-socialist” countries, such as Finland, Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain, however, have reduced the state share in medical costs. Zurabov can thus find justification for any medical reform project in world experience. Unfortunately, there are no standards for curing health care problems.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 19, 2007
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