Director-General of the National Social Security Fund, Mohammad Karaki, confirmed Saturday, in an interview with the “National News Agency”, that “there will be no amendment to the hospital tariffs in the event that the necessary funding for these increases is not secured,” noting that “the file is now in the custody of the Deputy Prime Minister, Caretaker Minister of Defense Zeina Akar, to follow up with the stakeholders in the Health, Labor and Finance Ministries.”
Karaki denied the circulated rumors that the National Social Security Fund has begun rationing admissions to hospitals, criticizing what he called “the process of lying, slander and fraud.”
“All talk about the bankruptcy or withering away of NSSF has no scientific foundation, and we say to all the skeptics that the march of NSSF is continuing and will not be stopped by all the malicious campaigns,” Karaki underlined.
In this connection, he explained that NSSF merely advised physicians to to be prudent in controlling unjustified admissions to hospitals and work to write off procedures that do not require hospitalization or convert them to external coverage in which the Fund contributes 80%. He stated that this step comes in an attempt to control needless spending by preventing the insured, whose health condition does not require admission to the hospital, from being admitted. “The aim is to control health spending to the maximum extent possible, especially since the conditions of the country no longer allow for any flaring policies, and we are now living on aid from brotherly and friendly countries, and this measure approved by the Fund’s management was welcomed by the main stakeholders in the field of public health in the country, particularly the Minister of Public Health and the Chairman of the Parliamentary Health Committee,” Karaki maintained.
Regarding the end-of-service indemnity, Karaki indicated that “the NSSF recently conducted 3 financial studies, all of which proved that the financial sustainability in this section is guaranteed, until at least 2065, and that the solvency ratio in this Fund exceeds 200%, meaning that the Fund is able today to compensate all those insured at once, and therefore there is no problem with the type of end-of-service indemnity, neither today nor in the future, and all talk contrary to that is misleading.”
Asked about family compensations, he said: “This section has absorbed the accumulated deficit, which was estimated at about 300 billion LBP, and as of this year, it will achieve annual savings of up to 50 billion LBP.”
Referring to the financial status of the disease and maternity section, Karaki said: “We have previously indicated that the accumulated deficit in this branch is about 4250 billion pounds by the end of 2020, while the accumulated debts of the Lebanese state are around 4800 billion by the end of 2020. Thus, the financial condition of this section and its continuity is related to the extent to which the state fulfills its duties in terms of paying the accumulated debts to NSSF and the funds allocated to it in the public budgets, the most recent of which is the budget for the year 2021, estimated at 460 billion, of which only 50 billion LBP has been paid to-date.”
“We affirm that if the state pays all the funds allocated in the 2021 budget, there will be no problem with the health insurance offerings throughout this year,” Karaki reassured.
The NSSF Director-General concluded by reiterating that all talk about the bankruptcy or deterioration of the National Social Security Fund is groundless and is not based on any scientific or accurate information whatsoever.
Source: National News Agency