BASED on a new law being prepared by the Health Ministry, about 30,000 state employees will be obliged to purchase health insurance from one of the two state health insurers on the market.
Soldiers, police, firefighters and customs officers already must be insured with the state-owned Spoločná Zdravotná Poisťovňa, allegedly because they need special health care and stricter protection of personal data, the daily Sme wrote.
According to Peter Pažitný from the Health Policy Institute, the ministry's idea is a relic of communist-era thinking that limits the right of citizens to choose freely.
Pažitný added that the ministry might be trying to stabilise the number of policyholders with state insurers, which have lost about 10 percent of their market share this year to private sector competition.
