Neither at the government's "Safe Patient" summit nor at the presidential "To the Rescue of Health Care" summit were there any breakthroughs, and the impact of the talks, which lasted a total of several hours, on the shape of the system, the fate of workers and, above all, patients, will be negligible, if any at all. However, this does not mean, paradoxically, that the summits themselves yielded nothing and were meaningless.
Feature
Małgorzata Solecka
From peaks to valleys
Published Dec. 8, 2025 13:37
If anyone needed confirmation that there is no idea for changes in health care at the moment, they can go back to the coverage of the government meeting - maybe even listen to the recordings - at any time to gain definitive certainty on the matter. If one needs confirmation that a coherent concept in the presidential camp will also be extremely difficult to come by, one can consult the list of members of the Presidential Health Council, which was established on the occasion of Friday's summit. Finding common ground, in this case, may be a challenge.
After a necessarily brief sojourn on the peaks, one descends to face reality. Health care, too, descends into the valleys (malcontents will claim that it's already a depression, below sea level), with beautiful sights under the eyelids (the table in the Presidential Palace), and a buzz in the ears (Thursday's speeches by government representatives), and in the head - anxiety about how the coming weeks and months will look like. Because many questions have been left unanswered, such as the reality of the austerity plan the Health Ministry has (or had). Both its implementation and - the prospect that the measures will be abandoned without the presentation of an alternative - may be cause for concern.
The situation was only temporarily calmed by Charles Nawrocki's signing of the amendment to the Medical Fund Act. The National Health Fund will get PLN 3.6 billion, the budget will not have to look for PLN 4 billion to pay into the Medical Fund for 2025, so the end of December promises to be - in this respect - calm. Only in this respect, because it is clear that PLN 3.6 billion does not exhaust the needs. It's hard not to remember that next to the gap on the cost side yawns a pretty big gap on the revenue side of the health premium - that's another PLN 3.5 billion (after nine months). How much will ultimately be missing from this column, we won't know until February. This money will have to be added by the Finance Ministry to the NFZ anyway, but it certainly won't solve any of the numerous problems.
The Prime Minister's announcement (promises?) that he will once again try to bring about a reduction in the health premium for entrepreneurs sounds disturbing. Of course, in February the smallest companies will experience quite a shock, as this year's base on which the health premium is calculated will return to a higher level. However, the financial situation of the National Health Fund, combined with the blockade, it seems, not only politically, but equally mentally, as to the possibility of discussing a change in the health financing scheme, is not conducive to such experiments, to say the least, on a living - still living - health care organism.
