“The General Health Insurance Company (VZP) has registered 298,900 new clients from among Ukrainian refugees so far, 85 percent of them being women and children, and over 18,200 of these people have a job and cover their health insurance by themselves,” said VZP board chairman Tom Philipp.
Since the February 24 start of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, Czechia has granted special temporary protection visas to 308,000 Ukrainians. The visa makes them eligible for public health insurance. They can register with any of Czechia’s seven health insurance companies.
The VZP, which is the biggest of them, has its branches directly in the refugee assistance centres in individual Czech regions, while the other insurers register new clients only in their respective offices.
Philipp said the VZP has registered 298,000 clients from Ukraine, some 119,000 of whom are children under 18, 136,000 are women and 44,000 are men. Ten percent of the adults, which is 6 percent of all Ukrainian clients, cover their health insurance contributions by themselves after finding a job or launching a business.
“They pay higher insurance contributions than the state pays for the unemployed and other selected groups of people,” said Philipp.
The state pays CZK 1,967 per person a month.
The VZP estimates the number of its Ukrainian clients from the war-stricken areas to climb to 362,000 later this year. If 10 percent of them, or 36,000 adults, got a job and covered their insurance fees, the VZP would gain some 0.8 billion crowns worth of revenues in this respect. The state contributions tor the remaining 90 percent of the refugees would amount to 3.6 billion crowns. The overall revenues from the contributions are thus estimated at 4.4 billion, while the VZP management expects the health care for the refugees to cost CZK 7.1 billion.
Source: VZP and CTK
