“The government’s intention to put a brake on the very large increases in insurance premiums for health programs and what was discussed in the morning in the Parliament justify the initiative of the Professional Chamber of Athens which highlighted this very serious issue and requested direct interventions from the state”. This was stated in his statement by the president of the Chamber, Yannis Hatzitheodosiou and added:

“Mainly we are justified in our fixed position that IOBE should not be involved in the matter of any adjustments to the amount of insurance premiums but calculations to be made according to data from ELSTAT. And under no circumstances should we wait until 2026 for the changes announced today by the Minister of Development. These must come into effect immediately, which will be to the benefit of both the insured and the insurance market itself.

As admitted by Mr. Theodorikakos, approximately 460,000 insured have canceled their lifetime contracts in recent years due to the exorbitant increases. Therefore, the absolute priority of all competent bodies must be the protection of the consumer.

And of course the “breaking” of the oligopoly that prevails in the field of private health due to the practices of 2-3 private hospitals and which has the consequence that Greece is in the second place of the highest hospitals in Europe, behind only Switzerland. I remind you that the subject of this particular oligopoly was also raised by the governor of the Bank of Greece.

One solution would be to apply protocols between insurance companies and private hospitals, on the model of what EOPYY has with private hospitals. So that there is no possibility of arbitrary increases in hospitalizations.

We must not overlook that every year Greek citizens pay 5 billion euros in private health.

Therefore, the issue of private insurance is extremely serious, it has a direct relationship with the development prospects of the country, while it clearly affects the public health aspect as well. The Professional Chamber of Athens will continue to fight, both for the protection of consumers and for the improvement of the conditions prevailing in the insurance market”.