National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) after January 1 2008 would pay for issuing European health cards to Bulgarians that entitle them to emergency medical aid within the European Union (EU), NHIF executive director Roumyana Todorova said, as quoted by Sega daily on October 29.

Currently, all Bulgarian citizens that wanted to obtain a European health card have been charge three leva for issuing, or 4.50 leva for express issuing. People had to pay because the NHIF had no item in its budget marked for the purpose, Sega said.

However, according to the EU requirements health insurance funds and not the insured persons should pay for the cards, Todorova said. Hence, the NHIF had pledged 10 million leva in its 2008 budget for issuing EU health cards. The cards issued so far were 150 000 and they had a one-year expiration term.

Meanwhile, the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party was planning to propose legislation that would oblige the candidates for EU health cards to pay their health insurance for a year ahead. The reason was that, under current legislation, after being issued a card they could stop paying their health insurance. Nevertheless, Bulgarians would still be entitled to free emergency medical aid abroad and the NHIF would have to pay for each treatment to the respective medical institution in a EU country. The problem stemmed from the fact that there was no single information system within the EU that would allow any hospital in a member country to check whether the emergency patients had been paying their regular health insurance contributions.