Fears that schedule to reform Health Funds could be delayed by up to a year

The government has planned to close the Regional Health Funds by the end of 2002 and replace them with a National Health Fund (NFOZ) as 1 January 2003. However, Parliament has not yet examined the proposal. "Solutions prepared by Health Minister Mariusz Lapinski are causing a great deal of controversy. Due to this, work on the changes will take at least several months," said Law and Justice (PiS) deputy Andrzej Wojtyla. The opposition claims that all the turmoil surrounding the funds is the enough reason to call for vote of no confidence against Minister Lapinski in the near future. "There are no plans to change the date of introducing the bill. The government will probably discuss it next week and then we want Parliament to analyze it as quickly as possible," said Health Ministry spokeswoman Renata Furman. The ministry claims that even if work on the bill was delayed, then its introduction would only be moved back by three months. The opposition claims that if this happens, then the delay would be far longer, around a year. A possible scenario is that from the beginning of next year the health funds will be closed, but the new ones would still not formally exist. (Zycie, pp. 1, 6) M.M.