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“Government transfers and compulsory contributions from employers and employees account for 68.3% of all health spending in Hungary, which is lower than the EU average of 79.8%. Contributions from employers are part of a larger social contribution tax, which also covers the pension fund. The increasing share of direct government transfers into the health insurance fund allowed the government to set its priorities freely and exert greater control over expenditure. This did not resolve the inherit instability of health care system funding, which was characterised by long periods of austerity and short periods of overspending, usually in election years (Szigeti et al., 2019). On the other hand, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this system enabled the government to inject additional funds into the health care system. On 4 April 2020, the government announced a Pandemic Protection Fund of HUF 663 billion (EUR 1.8 billion) to support the health care system. Financing for this fund largely came from budget reallocations from other ministries. The fund covered COVID-19-related costs, including a one-time bonus for health care workers of HUF 500,000 (EUR 1,362).”
Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Hungary: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.
World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.
Page last updated August 27, 2022 by Doug McVay, Editor.
