Parliament Fails to Vote on Healthcare Reform Following Circus of Follies by Medical Mafia

Date 2017/7/15 12:54:12 | Topic: Health/Science

Stalling tactics by healthcare opponents delayed discussion of this critical legislation which would provide health insurance for more than 90% of Ukrainians

 


KYIV, July 14, 2017 - Yesterday Parliament failed to vote on a sweeping reform bill which would raise the level of healthcare to meet international standards for 43 million Ukrainians. Though the session was extended by several hours into the evening, stalling tactics by healthcare opponents delayed discussion of this critical legislation which would provide health insurance for more than 90% of Ukrainians. The vote on the reform will resume in September when Parliament returns from vacation.

 

Sociological surveys consistently rank Ukraine’s Parliament as the single most disliked institution in government. The low ratings are not undeserved. In addition to the inaction on healthcare, other key reforms in education and privatization were also postponed.

 

The medical mafia pulled out all the stops to delay the inevitable passage of the reform this autumn. Although the original bill passed in the first reading on June 8, under Ukrainian law, the law must pass twice before being sent to the President for signing. The Parliamentary Healthcare Committee, recently ranked as one of the least effective committees in Parliament, then began the process of considering amendments to the legislation. Opponents of healthcare reform saw this an opportunity to kill the law and colluded to introduce a whopping 886 amendments. To complicate matters further, the Healthcare Committee only began reviewing the amendments two days before the planned vote in a further attempt to delay passage of the law.

 

Furthermore, the chairwoman of the committee, Olga Bogomolets, teamed up with former Party of Regions MP’s in an attempt to prevent a quorum and the anti-reform coalition boycotted and/or walked out of the committee meeting. However, the remaining Healthcare Committee members, troubled by the lack of leadership by chairwoman Bogomolets, managed to preserve the quorum and ensure that a vote could take place.  Following long deliberation and continued grassroots and international pressure, the bottleneck in committee was overcome, and the bill received a surprising positive recommendation for passage by Parliament.

 

However, in what would be a mere procedural matter in Western democracies, the absent chairwoman, Olga Bogomolets, refused to sign the minutes of the meeting in an attempt to deny Parliament its right to vote on the reform. Fellow MP’s were trying to persuade her to fulfill her legal duties as chairwoman to allow a vote, but she feigned illness in the restroom of Parliament. She was then escorted by ambulance to the Feofaniya hospital, which is known as the hospital of choice for Ukraine’s elites and richest persons. In her absence, the Deputy Chairwoman of the Committee, MP Oksana Korchinska, provided her signature to ensure that the parliament would vote on the reform.

 

Meanwhile, paid protestors were organized together with the Confederation of Free Trade Unions to demonstrate outside the Healthcare Ministry building. The paid protesters made hysterical claims about “genocide”, threatened violence numerous times (specifically to “storm” parliament), and eventually broke into the government building illegally. In addition, observers videoed protesters being paid near the ministry. Very disconcerting is the fact that the Confederation of Free Trade Unions has been a regular recipient of U.S. tax dollars and technical assistance administered by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

 

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http://mailchi.mp/ca45ce4d1c5f/parlia ... -follies-by-medical-mafia

 

Text provided by the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine

 





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