EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

a deeper understanding of the whole situation, we also use justificatory discourse, historical method, and analysis of alternatives.

3. Analysis and Problem Solution

3.1 Historical context If we turn to the historical context, then we can confirm the existence of real problems in the commercial travel medical insurance sector for foreigners in Czechia that needed to be solved. From 1993 to 2003 (Hnilicová, 2012) the state insurance company VZP already provided contractual insurance services for all migrants. From 2004 to 2021 commercial insurance was provided by various insurance companies, but this period is very often criticized by researchers in this field, who call it non-functional and discriminatory (Dobiášová, 2016) because in practice migrants faced problems: 1) the insurance company could refuse coverage if the migrant belonged to a high-risk group (age; chronic diseases); 2) the insurance contract contained a lot of exceptions, so the migrant was, in fact, uninsured from several diseases; furthermore emergency treatment or extra treatment was not paid by insurance companies to medical institutions, causing large debt to be accrued for both clients and medical institutions. The UN also criticized this period (UN, 2014, p. 4) as discriminatory against migrants, especially children. Even though the Czech Government’s Resolution 930 of 2014 required the inclusion of further categories of foreigners in public insurance, this decree was not implemented. Conversely, further restrictions on the rights of migrants are observed. There were 2 possible paths to take to solve how commercial insurance functioned (Pojmanová, 2017, p. 72). Some state institutions proposed improving the legal regulation of the activities of commercial insurance companies and the services they provided. The other parties (mainly public non-governmental organizations and scientists involved in the protection of human rights) insisted on the need to include unemployed and self-employed foreigners with long-term residence in the public insurance system (Dzúrová et al. , 2014; Tepperová et al ., 2016). The Czech authorities chose the first option but with radical changes. 3.2 Description of the situation: what has changed The new provisions that have been replaced by the Amending Act (Act No. 274/2021) are: 1) travel medical insurance may be arranged only with an insurance company authorized to operate this insurance in the Czech territory and whose sole shareholder is a health insurance company (Article 180j (6)) (public list of these companies is being introduced by Article 180j (12)). 2) The commercial insurance company is obliged to guarantee the provision of health

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