Financial Services, Latvia, Medicine

LETA was told at the ministry that the full range of health care services will be made available to persons that make social security contributions and those who are exempt from the social tax, for instance, children younger than 18, pensioners, jobless persons registered with the State Employment Agency, destitute persons and other groups. The full list of these groups will be provided in the respective legislation.

Since there are certain groups of employed persons, such as microenterprises, persons engaged in individual commercial activity, persons receiving their pay in the form of royalties and others that do not make social security contributions, they will be able to receive the full range of health care services by making a monthly payment.

The size of this monthly payment has yet to be determined as the issue is still to be debated, the Health Ministry said. Politicians have proposed sums in the range between EUR 10 and EUR 20.

As reported, the Latvian ruling coalition partners have reached an agreement on raising mandatory social insurance contributions, while further discussions will be held on progressivity of the personal income tax, Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis (Greens/Farmers) told the press after the coalition meeting today.

Social insurance contributions will be raised in order to raise financing for the health care sector. It is planned that the social insurance contributions will be raised by 1 percentage point – 0.5% for contributions paid by employers, and 0.5% for employees. A special payment might be set for those people who do not pay social tax. The partners have not discussed the size of this payment, but it might be tied to the average wage.