ZUS / NFZ / Compulsory Health Insurance in Poland - where the money come to/from?

So where does my składka zdrowotna and społeczna go to?

To the one pool/coffers, called in Poland funnily enough a budged, where then is redisposed by the people called politicians.

Where does ZUS get money from then?
And if it's not from our składki, why can't we get another private insurance?
BTW, if you're self employed and you need to pay your składki to ZUS yourself, do they send the money to the government if they don't get it?

You are right here, Kaprys, and Irony is wrong. The compulsory health insurance goes to NFZ and this money does not intermingle with the money in the general state budget or local budgets. That was so in the commie times and that is what PiS wanted was to go back to again. The NFZ had to be demolished under the scheme proposed by the current PiS Health Minister Konstanty Radziwiłł (herbu Trąby?). But then, after they had pompuously announced their intention to bury the NFZ completely, it all suddenly stopped and the government propaganda has been silent on the proposed reform in health financing ever since. So the hospitals and health centers still receive money from the NFZ (through negotiated contracts) which money come to the NFZ from the compulsory health insuarance (składka zdrowotna) and not from the state budget. The same applies to social insurance, but there the deficit is quite big, so the budget pours money to ZUS to fill the gap. Yet, the social insurance (ubezpieczenie społeczne) exists as a mechanism of financing people's pensions.

And NFZ and ZUS are linked.
The funny part is that if you're employed and self employed, you pay składka zdrowotna from both sources. Surprisingly enough, your state medical treatment isn't twice as good.

A couple of years ago I read an article about extra expenses ZUS had to cover like buying coffee, cookies etc (cele reprezentatywne or whatever) and there was a bunch of comments below with one saying: a szyby kuloodporne zamówili?

ZUS is not part of the general budget and we are repeatedly told it is a contributory system, not a tax.

And why is there a ZUS office in every town? In the UK there is one (Newcastle Upon Tyne) and has been since the 1970s. And why are there holiday hotels for ZUS employees, such as the one on Wolin Island in Swinoujscie?

In Britain we had class war, and by the same token these ZUS buildings should be seized by the mob.

In what way are they linked, please explain.

There used to be one in most large towns, when certain benefits were contribution-based and when every employer submitted monthly payments on paper. I remember that in the 80s. Fortunately they streamlined it all as soon as they could. In Poland, it's high time to change, however at least it provides employment. The system in PL is of coures a lot more complicated, something else they could look at...

ZUS gets money for direct tax on the people and from the budged, gov has only so often add money, rise salaries for doctors and nurses, or had to pay debts that hospital accommodated.


Because:

A: gov cannot tell the people who had been scammed for 40 or 50 years to go F... themselves (too many angry voters) and those people generally cannot afford to go private.

To put it simply, old granny on 600zl a month will not get private insurance - firstly because cannot afford it, secondly is mainly unable to grasp the idea, thirdly had been paying ZUS taxes for 40 years. Also often she is using doctors services more oft than 45 years old.

Now imagine, than all better earners and self-employers i.e. all greater contributors to ZUS would go private and only people who are ought health services already are left or those with marge income? Who would have to divert even more money from the coffers? Gov.

B. Some people are making money from the way things are. As it is often the case those people re pretty influential and connected.


NFZ is a scam, people working there are driving luxury cars and there is extensive redound becuracracy. It would do to have a team of three people to run in with the help of a computer program for the entire country, just to manage individual accounts of people. Rather to supervising managing by some or other bank.

Buildings, cars all kind of stuff is just pure waste and thievery in the day light.
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You're right D, if people would just act together against such a total scam....

@Ziemowit
In terms of składka zdrowotna and dobrowolne ubezpieczenie zdrowotne for sure.

@Ironside
So how do you explain the reason why self employed people pay składka zdrowotna/spoleczna/fundusz pracy straight to ZUS?

'Składka zdrowotna' goes to NFZ, 'dobrowolne ubezpieczenie zdrowotne' - what do you mean by this?


Managing individual accounts is not the essential activity of NFZ, I think it is already being managed by banks. Negotiating and managing contracts with hospitals and other health centers such as out-patient or in-patients clinics is.

You apply for dobrowolne ubezpieczenie zdrowotne at NFZ and you pay it through ZUS.

Surely you jest jon? This is a serious matter, and as Ironside says, they are crooks.

That is so called middleman.
You see hospitals and all the stuff related in Poland is about like 90/80% paid for from taxes.
Now ZUS is like an expensive and redundant busybody that is generating cost and eat up into founds gathered on ZUS.
Think about gov has a body that this particular tax is going into to pay for services that are preformed in state (gov) owned hospitals. It is a brazen con if I have even seen one.


Yes, yes they are very important very skilled, educated, well paid and very needed pen pushers... lol!

I disapprove of ZUS for sure but what kind of tax are you talking about? In Polish. Are you talking about you składka zdrowotna and społeczna, fundusz pracy, fundusz emerytalny or what.

As this discussion started (in random chat as it wasn't my intention to start a new thread) when you replied to my comment about people paying all their working life to ZUS and said that it's not paying into any system but just another tax.

Surely Ironside is talking about the above. It's the healthcare system that is the major bone of contention here. As for the others, of course one can't expect a statutory pension fund to provide for more than the bare minimum, but the freedom to opt out needs to be enshrined in law, and all of these small town ZUS "employees" that jon lauds need to be given their marching orders.

The rest of us are sick of paying for their needless employment.

ZUS is like the royal family, expensive (not nearly as much as ZUS though) but at least it gives the general public something to talk about. The stories about its waste are always fun, like creating a 100 k zl. video on the history of ZUS for one of their anniversaries or the employees wanting a new building because they felt they deserved to work in "nice" office conditions like people in private businesses (missing the fact that private businesses create wealth for the country whereas they burn it)

Doug Regarding the people in local bureaucracies you are right in principle, but there is no other solution for those people at the moment.

they are often quite old, not able to retrain all learn languages and not mobile - many of them double as nannies for their grandchildren. The problem will resolve itself in a few years - meanwhile those are the people who really were often on the streets opposing communism, queueing for bread, and bring up kids in the most difficult of circumstances in the 80s

Do I understand you right cms? That the state owes these people a job so slings them in ZUS offices and the like? And the rest of us pay for them to employed in these spanking new offices, because otherwise Ogrodzieniec and the like would have 15 percent unemployment? Please tell me that you are having a laugh, and that I took the bait.

If there are no jobs in your locality for your skills, you up sticks and go where the work is (slaps-head). Pity there are no emotions on this forum. I need a double blink symbol.

It's not enough to fire these people and close the offices down. You need to change the whole system.
I don't know how it works in your part of Poland but where I am I don't remember a single time when I went there and saw the employees idle - there were always people queuing. And something must have brought them there - probably some silly rules.

Several months ago I got a phone call from my local branch asking about a contract from 2011 or 2012. So the system keeps the employees busy.

@Sparks11
There are some impressive ZUS buildings indeed ....

Everything that you are forced to pay by the gov is a tax, no matter what they term it or what they claim it is all about. The bare bones of the truth are that compulsory payments instituted and enfaced by a government is a tax in everything but the name.--


Of course there is - get rid of all those people NFZ, their building, expenses and you would be able to lower ZUS by at least 1/3.

Other solution the one I have mentioned already is to get rid of the ZUS tax all together and to directly pay from the budged for health services to all over the age 45.

Part of the money to do that could found from diverting funds from the state that is currently paying for the higher education for all and sundry.

Whatever you call it, if present days pensioners paid tax/składka zdrowotna etc all their working life, they should be entitled to get free health care nowadays.

No I am being serious so pour yourself another brandy and chill out :)

You would cut some overheads, but create hundreds of thousands of new unemployed people. As I've said before these people are not mobile and past the age where they are able to re-train, often having burdensome family commitments, starting to get ill as they get older etc.

Unemployment is one of the most dangerous and corrosive forces in society. During shock therapy it was often a model that the man of the house would be fired from a truly uneconomical factory but at least his wife was able to earn a few Zloty pen pushing in some local office.

There is more to life sometimes than dollars and cents, you have to keep people busy and engaged with the community.

Now probably is the time that they can start to rationalise, many towns are close to full employment and technology is becoming cheaper.

Do you want them to work in sheds and barns!?

commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oddzia%C5%82_ZUS_w_Lublinie.jpg

Nope but buildings like the one in Lublin are definitely too much.

I'm with Ironside on this one. ZUS is a scourge on our society and a lot of those offices, which are there in most large towns, need to be closed, when national insurance administration ought to be centralised, to save hundreds of millions from the budget.

You exaggerated with the "hundreds of thousands" quote, but surely over the years, construction of, and running of these offices does run into the hundreds of millions of zlotys. Incredible, and if I was a journalist I would run with that story, Obviously people love having their money wasted, or perpetuating a system where they can be bullied and ordered to their local ZUS office to explain some imagined mis-demeanour, or, perhaps more logically, they feel it's a very convenient situation because they don't have far to go to their local ZUS office?

I can count on the fingers of one hand the numbers of times I was called into a government office in the UK to explain my tax returns or national insurance payments. All of this supposed need for local offices is a bureaucratic nonsense, which could mostly be done on the telephone, belongs to a communist "stamp-issuing" culture, and wastes huge money.

It is also a job creation scheme, as we all know. I am amazed that you would still support that facet after 28 years of a market orientated economy.

You are right about economic growth cmc, half of the Katowice countryside, where I am at the present, is covered with new logistics centres and light manufacturing plants, and the employment situation and future opportunity is being rapidly transformed. It's good news.

What is not good news in the increased ridiculousness of this government, with its' "They wont get away with it" paranoia, which clearly means there are going to be more government jobs and more senseless bureaucracy - which, no matter how busy the staff seem - does not produce material benefit apart from the legal necessities and collection/allocation of monies due, and which could so obviously be automated to a large degree. Those jobs don't exist in the UK, and I'm pretty sure, in other real democracies either.

I'm not just counting ZUS but all the other things that are local but could be central - tax, customs,sanepid, driving licences, road admin etc. I think the number probably does run into a few hundred k. I agree that it's a waste of money but I don't think those people have luxurious lives.

No, they don't. The subject was ZUS though, and how it is all so unnecessary; nobody is prepared to face up the reality of the situation, but actually we are making it worse. And small private enterprise has to carry the can. Glad that my stint is almost over.