Romanian Health Insurance House head unhappy with contribution levels

Romania has one of the lowest health contributions and the mandatory health insurance has become more of an option as 5 million Romanians pay contributions for almost 19 million people, according to the president of the National Health Insurance House (CNAS) Laurentiu Mihai. Meanwhile, patients want medical services of comparable quality to those provided by countries where the contributions are much higher, he added, reports local News.ro. The CNAS president thinks the funding for the healthcare sector is insufficient but says that CNAS can’t produce money and only manages the funds allotted to it. “Much better financing is needed, but this doesn’t depend or depends only to a small extent of the Insurance Houses, it depends on the resources that the Romanian economy can produce,” Laurentiu Mihai said. He added that he wanted to increase the role of family doctors, who “should not be just medical information distributors but also medical information integrators,” meaning that they should be actively involved in screening programs for various diseases and offer telemedicine services. CNAS has a budget of some EUR 7.3 billion this year, up by EUR 1 billion compared to last year. editor@romania-insider.com