There is a new NFZ Council

The NFZ Council's decision on the draft financial plan is the final act in the process of giving its opinion. The parliamentary committees have already given their opinions: the Public Finance Committee positive, the Health Committee negative.

Opinions, both from parliamentary committees and the NFZ Council, are not binding on the ministers of health and finance, who should sign off on the plan by the end of July. They should, but as this year's example shows - they don't have to. There is no indication that the financial plan for 2025 will be signed at all (in the winter, the Health Minister said she was "in the process of good talks" with the Finance Minister on the subject; at the moment, when asked about signing the financial plan, she believes it has become a "fetish"), and the plan for next year is fraught with the same flaws as this year's - an imbalance between the costs that the payer will surely have to bear and the expected revenues. The underestimation of the subject subsidy (26 billion zlotys, only 8 billion zlotys more than the planned subsidy for 2025, which is on track to exceed the value assumed for next year) was much discussed at the meeting of the Health Committee, and members of the outgoing Council were also aware of the underestimation, but only Maria Ochman (representing the Social Dialogue Council on the trade union side) abstained from the vote.

On Wednesday, Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna appointed members of the new NFZ Council. The social partners are represented on it by Łukasz Kozłowski, chief economist of the Federation of Polish Entrepreneurs (on behalf of the employers' organizations), and Deputy Chairman of the Trade Union Forum Dariusz Trzcionka. The Council also included, as a representative of the Ministry of Finance, economist and Adam Smith Center expert Anna Golębicka (who also works closely with OZZL).