Huston, we have a problem, i.e., the National Health Service's financial plan for 2025.

Deputy Minister Jerzy Szafranowicz represented the ministry at the meeting for the first time. As he pointed out, the NFZ budget for 2025 is PLN 197 billion 844 million on the cost side. Among the biggest changes, he pointed to an increase of nearly 27 percent in outlays for palliative and hospice care (this is the aftermath of the decision to remove caps). Spending on hospitalization will increase by nearly 22 percent.

The director of the Economic and Financial Department of the National Health Fund, Dariusz Jarnutowski, referred to the details of the plan. The payer's revenue will come in the lion's share from health premiums - it is expected to be 173 billion 174 million zlotys, which is 87, 5 percent of the total. The subsidy from the state budget is to amount to more than PLN 18 billion. The NFZ budget will also be boosted by earmarked funds - the Medical Fund (2.7 billion) and the Solidarity Fund (PLN 10 million), or alcohol and sugar fees (PLN 1.7 billion), and diminished by, among others, write-offs for the Medical Research Agency (PLN 519 million), or the Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tarification (PLN 83 million). The NFZ's costs are primarily medical services, which are expected to cost PLN 183 billion 637 million (a 92.82 percent share of total costs). Administrative operating costs of the fund are expected to amount to PLN 1 billion, accounting for 0.82 percent of total expenses.

Opposition MPs asked whether next year's NFZ plan is realistic and how the implementation of promises from the election programs of the parties that make up the current ruling coalition will be financed. - Will it be enough to prevent the kind of situations that are occurring this year, when there are no funds for payment of overdrafts, including for unlimited services? We hear that provincial branches of the NFZ are sending facilities away," said former Deputy Health Minister Janusz Cieszynski (Law and Justice). To a list of questions related to the implementation of the promises of the Civic Coalition and the Third Way, which was formulated by former Minister Katarzyna Sójka, the ruling coalition deputies responded by reproaching the respirator and mask affair. The argument escalated, and when epithets were exchanged ("grandmother of the market") some Law and Justice deputies left the meeting room.

Deputy Minister Jerzy Szafranowicz, referring to the issue of paying hospitals for overcharges, admitted that "there is a problem." - They have not been paid regularly, and previously they were always paid quarterly. It's no secret that there is a problem, but the overdrafts will be paid, all of them for the first quarter have already been paid, and all of them will be paid, this is guaranteed by the words of the Minister," he said. As he said, a large part of the hospitals' problems are to be solved by the changes announced by the Health Ministry (the Health Committee was held in parallel with Izabela Leszczyna's meeting with local government officials and directors of local government hospitals), namely deregulation, transformation and reversal of the pyramid of benefits.

However, there is a problem with this. As Marek Wojcik, an expert from the Association of Polish Cities, said, the financial plan shows a clear increase in spending on hospitality. - In previous years, in the original plan, these expenditures were set at 46-47 percent, after changes we came to just over 50 percent. In the current draft we already have 49.11 percent," he said. - he pointed out. The expert also stressed that the increase (plan to plan) in revenues by PLN 29 billion may seem impressive, but since we know that nearly PLN 19 billion will be spent on expenses related to the implementation of the Minimum Wage Act and about PLN 8 billion is spent annually by the National Health Fund on non-limited services and overexpenditures - the money will simply run out. This shortfall Wójcik estimated at a minimum of PLN 15 billion. Wojciech Wiśniewski of the Federation of Polish Entrepreneurs, citing a report on the financial gap of the NFZ 2025-2027, recalled that according to experts, next year the Fund will lack more than 27 billion zlotys to maintain the current efficiency of the system (i.e. guaranteeing what is financed this year) - and even this is on the condition that no decisions are made that reduce revenues (contribution to entrepreneurs) or increase costs (amendment to the Minimum Wages Act).