RECONSIDERING THE FUNDING SOURCES FOR THE HEALTH SYSTEM IN ROMANIA

An optimal health system must ensure that all citizens have free access to medical services, and to determine the effective use of funds. We therefore reach the conclusion that the health financing system that best meets the optimal criteria is the public one. We believe that a system of public health funding should be based not only on contributions, but also on funding from the state budget; therefore it should combine the two public sources. If it were based solely on contributions, then the earnings should be volatile towards the economic cyclicality, and would not ensure the fiscal sustainability of the system. The private health financing system should be based on private insurances, and not on direct payments as it is in the current case, private insurances should have a predominantly complementary nature (covering the co-payments for those that are forced to bear them), and only in the case of rich people it can be substituted.