UW member says his party is for doing away with Health Ministry

The Freedom Union (UW) party believes the best way to improve the country's ailing healthcare system would be by dispensing with the Health Ministry and the Health Insurance Supervisory Office (UNUZ) altogether and instead introducing private insurance institutions onto the market. "We should do away with those institutions which do not work properly after the healthcare reform system," said Sejm healthcare committee head and UW deputy Tadeusz Zielinski. He accused the Ministry of ineffectiveness and incompetence, saying in particular that it had been unable to deliver reliable data concerning contracts with private healthcare funds (kasa chorych). According to UW representatives, part of the duties of the Health Ministry would be taken over by the Labor Ministry and the National Health Institute (KIZ). The Freedom Union also suggests merging the healthcare funds and creating their private counterparts in order to create incentives for competition, a move the party officially disapproved of a few months ago. (Rzeczpospolita, p.A3) J.K.