If I were the Health Minister for a day, I would first act for the recovery and elimination of the debts in the system until 2011 and then introduce the European directives on strengthening contractual discipline (payment terms not longer than 30 days) for the public authorities - intentionally omitted – into ontractual stipulations. Shifting the responsibility and the liability of the National Health Insurance House under the authority of the Prime Minister, as well for other public institutions (i.e. the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority) and shifting decision power from the President of the National Health Insurance House (who is appointed solely on political criteria), to the Administration Board, are two other important measures to be taken.

The first measures I would take as Minister of Health would be suspend the payment of the state health insurances to the employees followed by introducing the private health insurance system, privatization of hospitals through the MEBO method, introducing informatics, acting for the re-allocation of the resources to the primary medicine.

If I would find myself in the position of Minister of Health, I would first implement the private health insurance system and create the operational framework for the public - private partnerships in the healthcare system. Other important measures to be taken are: legislate a minimal budget for the health system, as a percentage of the GDP valid for each budgetary year, as the minimum guaranteed by law, definine the minimum set of health services for the state social insurances and I would implement the co-payment system. Also I would act for the the efficiency and transparency of the hospital reform: closing, resizing, relocation / consolidation, transfer to the local administrations, transfer / cooperation with the Ministry of  Labor and Social Protection for social cases, outsourcing of the administrative services.

If I were the Health Minister for a day, I would reduce the standard healthcare services package; these measures must be endorsed by a much better control of the budgetary funds spending, grant tax deductions for private health insurances and act for the privatization or encourage the public-private partnerships for several of the hospitals. Also I would increase doctors` salaries and of the medical staff, by retaining full non-budgetary revenues in hospitals and distribute them as incentives to the health staff. In a later stage, I would support a "privatization" of the minimum health package, with the development of a strong private sector, under the conditions that some benefits for the budget could be supported (i.e. much better cost control).

We must finalize as soon as possible the minimum medical services package to pave the way for private health insurance.

It is imperative to introduce co-payment but it is also vital to reform hospital management the ineffectiveness of which is close to ridiculous.

The Romanian healthcare system needs structural changes along with a long cycle of constantly adapted feed-back given by the market.

It is necessary to create a legislative framework that encourages public-private partnerships, to implement a private health insurance system, to define the minimum medical services package, to introduce co-payment and to reform hospitals.

Investors who have placed their money in the Romanian healthcare system should be treated with more decency.

The dysfunctions in the Romanian healthcare system cannot be resolved as long as a medium-term strategy doesn’t even exist.

In order to improve the Romanian healthcare system, the first measure to take would be to implement co-payment and private health insurance services and then to aggressively promote private investment in the system.

What the healthcare system requires right now is a lot of transparency and more efficiency in spending money from the national health fund, as well as more aggressive measures for Romanian hospitals to reach a minimum level of economic efficiency.

In order to improve the situation in the healthcare system, strong discipline is firstly needed at all levels. This discipline should be founded on both the existing legislation as well as on working protocols and setting responsibilities within the system. At the moment, unfortunately, we often witness a type of organization and functioning of services within medical units which does not take into account the main issue: the meeting of patient needs. It is also important to restructure the financing of the system.

Fund allocation within the system must be rethought as we are already in a free fall towards the bottom of the slope. Those who suffer most from the government’s inconsitency of opinions are the patients, regarding both quality of medical care and free access to medical services and medication.

We should not be afraid to start thinking that the healthcare system cannot survive as an entirely public system, financed from a languishing budget. As in other west European countries we should accept the fact that the private component should exist within the public system. I’m not talking about complementary or parallel systems, but of the involvement of private funds in the public system.

I would look more carefully and I would rearrange the whole range of regulations which establishes and defines the obligations and the limit of competence for all big participants: The Ministry, the National Health Insurance Organization, professional associations. Unfortunately, these things we diluted and very much lost in the past 2-3 years. These entities do not know very well their responsibilities and competencies, and least of all put them into practice. ‘

I would improve the communication by saying exactly what we can cover and what not. I would try to find certain means to truly attract extra funding into the system and I would significantly invest in training personnel to manage the administrative system. These issues should be mentioned and supported in communicating the priorities in the authorities’ agenda.