Whether the changes in the health premium for entrepreneurs that the government plans to make as of January 1, 2026 are socially just and whether they are feasible in the current crisis situation of the payer - this, among other things, was discussed during Tuesday's meeting of the Extraordinary Subcommittee, which is dealing with the government's draft amendment to the Law on Health Benefits.
Health premium changes 2026: A chance for balance or another crisis?
Published Feb. 5, 2025 09:12
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The subject of the bill, which was submitted late last year, is a change in the rules for calculating the health contribution from entrepreneurs. The first part of the changes went into effect on January 1 (companies no longer pay a premium on the sale of fixed assets and the smallest ones have had their health contribution reduced by about PLN 100), the second stage is to come into effect next year. As the Finance Minister assured, it will benefit the lion's share of entrepreneurs: they will pay a lower premium (the loss in the payer's budget due to this is estimated at about PLN 4-5 billion).
And this was one of the main issues discussed during the first substantive meeting of the subcommittee: whether the public payer will not suffer a reduction in the premium income. It was asked what the statutory guarantees would be to compensate for this loss from the state budget (because there are no such provisions in the draft, although Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna said many times last year that she had the finance minister's word of honor to compensate for any loss). There has even been a proposal - from MP Patrick Wicher (Law and Justice) - not only to accelerate the achievement of 7% of GDP, but above all to remove from the bill the n-2 methodology, which relates current health spending from year X to GDP two years ago. This results in the fact that, although on paper we are spending more and more on health from public funds (this year already 6.5 percent of GDP), actual spending is more than one percentage point lower (this means a difference of about 40-45 billion zlotys), and in international compilations, in which a narrower catalog is considered current public spending - we are still spending below 5 percent of GDP.
The second focus of the discussion was the inequality of the insured and the prospect of its worsening: after all, the largest contributor is contracted employees. Entrepreneurs, with significantly higher revenues (and income) pay lower premiums already, and after the changes - they will pay even less.
Finally - the shape of the changes. Representatives of entrepreneurs raised that while the changes will be beneficial to them, they will only marginally fulfill the promise of simplifying settlements. Suggestions were made to follow foreign models, such as Slovakia. There, the health contribution is calculated on the basis of a company's income from the previous year - and its amount is divided into twelve monthly installments. In Lithuania, on the other hand, entrepreneurs pay a minimum contribution each month, and pay the difference when they make their annual settlement.
The subcommittee is expected to set a date for a meeting in the near future, where it will already be working on preparing a report for the parliamentary health and finance committees.
