Medical Fund. Will there be two projects?

On Tuesday, the government is expected to adopt an urgent draft amendment to the Medical Fund Act, allowing the FM to transfer some PLN 3.5 billion to the NFZ coffers - funds to compensate for the payer's out-of-pocket expenses for unlimited services for children and adolescents. And, at the same time, a sizable cash injection to stabilize the situation and ensure that services can be financed in the final weeks of the year. It is not certain that this money will prove sufficient - which is why employers' organizations and trade unions want to hear explanations from the Finance Ministry at a meeting of the Trilateral Team for Health Care, also scheduled for Tuesday, but it is certain that without it the NFZ situation will be even more critical.

The Health Ministry assumes that the law will come into force in mid-December: therefore, it is expected to be adopted at the session of the Sejm that begins Tuesday, and approved without amendments by the Senate next week. After that - the decision in the hands of the President. This one, however, is not certain: although a signal has come from the Presidential Palace that Karol Nawrocki agrees to the current replenishment of the NFZ coffers from the Medical Fund (this loss is to be compensated in subsequent years by a higher budget subsidy to the FM), but he does not accept the solution of writing off the liability that hangs over the state budget in the amount of PLN 4 billion. This is the money that in the spring Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna transferred, instead of to the Medical Fund, precisely to the National Health Fund, which lacked money for settlements with health care providers for last year.

That's why a presidential draft amendment is also due to go to the Diet, and all indications are that there will be a fierce political battle around the Medical Fund's money - in fact, the money the National Health Fund is waiting for.