National Health Fund continues to plague the government - and budget

Prime Minister Leszek Miller announced that the government hopes the President will sign the bill to form the National Health Fund (NHF) as soon as possible. He also admitted that introducing the Fund will lead more problems for the budget. The NHF will cost the state budget around zl. 1 billion annually, which was not foreseen in the 2003 budget projections. "If it turned out that the revenues would not be able to finance these expenditures, than the budget bill will have to altered," said Miller. Besides the budget, it will also hit local governments, who now stand to lose tax incomes of zl. 200 million. President Aleksander Kwasniewski, has until February 17 to sign the NHF bill. In the meantime he asked a group of experts to give him their independent opinion on it. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A6) A.K.