Estonia requires additional €150M to maintain healthcare system

Minister of Health Riina Sikkut (SDE) plans to take questions in healthcare funding, including whether to move incapacity for work benefits from the Health Insurance Fund to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, to the cabinet this month or the next.

Estonia will need an additional €150 million to maintain its healthcare system at the current level next year. This sum is set to grow to €250 million by 2027.

While the government had plans to discuss the matter late last year, beginning of this one, Riina Sikkut now said she plans to put it on the agenda in March or April.

“We have the results of analyses as well as material or a memorandum for the government which we put together late last year. There is no controversy involved. But then the teachers’ strike landed, and we were tackling those matters, trying to find money for education,” the health minister told ERR.

She said that deliberations, which have been going on monthly, include whether to move sickness benefits from the budget of the Health Insurance Fund to that of the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Another proposed way to find more money for healthcare is paying for the medical treatment expenses of children directly from the state budget, as is currently the case with unemployed pensioners.

“Those are the solutions we’ve proposed. In the end, we need the government to deliberate and decide on a scenario and pace of changes,” Sikkut said, adding, however, that no set sum will be earmarked for healthcare this spring.

The health minister also noted that healthcare funding is tied to the general economic situation.

“In the conditions of falling tax revenue and a tense overall situation, it is difficult to settle on additional spending,” the minister remarked. ERR