2019 budget for universal healthcare expected to exhaust soon

Due to increased costs, the budget of the universal healthcare system is set to use up earlier than expected. As of November 29, GEL 745.1 million of the 754-million plan of the system has already been allocated and spent, according to the State Treasury. As a result, just 9 million GEL remains for the system until the end of 2019.

The budget of the universal healthcare program would have lasted in case of the average daily expenditure of GEL 2.065 million. The limit was exceeded, spending GEL 2.277 million on average. Accordingly, to ensure the smooth running of the program until the end of the year, approximately additional GEL 60 million is required.

The Ministry of Health has been the target of sharp criticism from private clinics over the past month over a Government Decree #520, which equalizes tariffs for medical facilities. Some medical institutions demand the government's decision to provide patients with a uniform tariff under the universal health care program to be temporarily suspended. Furthermore, their request is to set up a working group to review existing tariffs.

“We are working in every direction to ensure that the private sector does not face problems with providing patients with services,” said the Health Minister Ekaterine Tikaradze at the time.

For its part, the Ministry of Health argues that the new tariffs are fair and that they are ready to review the tariff if the clinics justify their position with arguments.

The clinics say that the unified tariff set by the Decree is lower than the cost of medical care they provide. The clinics cannot exit the universal health care program either. As they say, the percentage of patients covered by private insurance companies is not more than 3-5%.

“This is the only funder today. Accordingly, leaving this program would mean that the clinic will no longer be able to provide patients with necessary care, as the patient solvency is very low,” said Davit Mikeladze, a CEO of Open Heart clinic at a press conference.

Since its adoption, the budget for the universal healthcare system was spent earlier than expected practically every year.

In 2018, the GEL 713 million budget for universal health care was spent earlier, after which the Ministry of Health increased its budget by reallocating its resources to the program and increased a total to GEL 760 million.

The budget for the universal health care program was exhausted earlier in 2017 too, leaving the state to allocate additional GEL 40 million to save the program.

The universal healthcare budget in 2016 and 2015 wasn’t effective either. On November 7, 2016, the program's GEL 570 million budget was exhausted, with the Ministry of Health increasing it with GEL 35 million. The additional 35 million was spent on December 12, with the Ministry of Health having to add another GEL 18 million.

A similar case occurred in 2015 when the program's budget was spent in November, and the government adjusted the budget to fund it and added GEL 100 million to the program. At that time, the Ministry of Health had reduced the amount of social assistance in order to address the deficiency in the universal healthcare program.