There would be no miracles in the Bulgarian healthcare in the year to come, although the Cabinet could put in motion the privatisation of hospitals and the opening up health insurance to private funds to compete against the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), Bulgaria's new Health Minister Evgenii Zhelev told KNSB labour union head Zhelyazko Hristov on May 9 2008.

Zhelev emphasised that these processes should be part of a national programme, based on the national healthcare strategy.

According to the minister, the authorities and the labour unions’ view on the base matter did not differ significantly. A branch agreement, which would introduce payment standards, would be signed at the end of May, Zhelev said, as quoted by Focus news agency.

Hristov said that the whole sum for healthcare insurances should be provided from the budget surplus. The planned two per cent increase in the healthcare contributions should not be paid by employees, he said. Bulgaria’s healthcare budget needed an additional 500 million leva over the current allocation to fulfill all its functions, he said.

A strategy for the development of healthcare should be introduced and NHIF should become again public, Hristov said. He confirmed that KNSB was ready to support ideas for the privatisation of the hospitals, but some hospitals though should remain state-owned, according to Hristov.

In an interview with Focus, Zhelev said that that it was possible to allocate five per cent of the gross domestic product to the healthcare system. The executive body of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the senior partner in the ruling coalition, was ready to insist on an increased figure." We should now compare with the other European counties, which allocate at least seven per cent of the GDP for healthcare," he said. The money could come from the redistribution of the budget surplus, Zhelev said.