Czech health insurance for foreigners under EU scrutiny
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Loading... - Robbe Jansens
- 17 Oct 2022
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When an amendment to the law regarding foreigners’ health insurance in the Czech Republic was passed last year, then-opposition MP ZbynÄ›k Stanjura criticised it. Now, however, as the current finance minister he is having to defend it – and to no less than the European Commission.
As the law in Czechia now stands, foreigners who stay in the country for more than 90 days must be insured with the same company: VZP, the biggest health insurance firm in the country. It insures 40,000 foreigners, the vast majority of which – 35,000 – have been added to their files since the new law came into force.
But the Czech Association of Insurance Companies has filed a complaint to the EU Commission claiming a violation of competition and fundamental European rights. It says that VZP has a monopoly on the insurance of foreigners enshrined in law that neither the Health Ministry nor the Finance Ministry ever agreed to.
The law was passed last year, when Andrej Babiš’s ANO party was still in power, and was lobbied for by ANO MPs and VZP board members Miloslav Janulík and VÄ›ra Adámková. ZbynÄ›k Stanjura, an opposition member at the time, criticised the law, ironically implying that the MPs who drafted it were trying to line their own pockets. Read More...
