Péter Márki-Zay would return to the left-wing government approach before 2010 in health care as well. Gyurcsány's candidate made it clear in his previous statements that he would put healthcare in the hands of profit-oriented companies.
Last summer, former Jobbik chairman Gábor Vona interviewed Péter Márki-Zay, who literally said:
“The sad truth is that everything is business. It would be hypocritical to say that healthcare is not a business. Frankly, I'm more comfortable with healthcare being a business than not being a business. Because where there is no business, they are ruined. In Africa, they found that the systems where there was free health care were in terrible condition, people were dying, and so on. Where paid healthcare was introduced, it worked well. So there is no such thing as free health care when, for example, people pay with gratuities and pay out of pocket. There is no free health care, it is an illusion. (…) The model itself, which I see as ideal, is a single-insurance, competitive healthcare model."
Péter Márki-Zay/Source: Hír TV
The left tried several times to place health care on a business basis already during the prime ministership of Ferenc Gyurcsány, and Péter Márki-Zay wants to practically re-implement the model that failed at that time.
Let's recall what Ferenc Gyurcsány said in 2006 in his speech before the inauguration of the new building block of the Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Hospital. "Healthcare is our common social treasure and business, it's a shame to lie about the latter, because then we'll end up in a dead end."
The prime minister at the time made his intentions clear: "We must build an open healthcare industry with wealthy clients. As long as only moderately poor and moderately rich society is present as customers in the system, doctors cannot sell more expensive, more, better services. The system must be made insurance-based and the system must be opened up so that it can also provide services to Europe."
Márki-Zay's current argument - that "where paid health care was introduced, it worked well" - is spectacularly refuted by the practice of several European countries. In Spain and Italy, the extra burden caused by the coronavirus epidemic really showed the tragic consequences of the business-based operation of healthcare. Despite the fact that money flowed to private insurance companies for years - which the left-liberal governments in Hungary unsuccessfully advocated for years - when the coronavirus epidemic hit, these companies turned aside, claiming that it is not good to insure people against epidemics. In addition, Spain has found itself equipped with a particularly low number of intensive care beds in the face of the coronavirus, which is also related to the neglect and privatization of healthcare.
So, contrary to the claims of the candidate of the left, "paid" health care is not a guarantee of good functioning at all, quite the contrary. After all, the number one consideration in the business model is profit and not the safe health care of people.
Source, full article: origo.hu
Featured image: MTI/Zoltán Balogh/illustration
