EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
In the midst of summer, our experts were sought after by the media on topics such as: healthcare, taxes and the tax system, pension system reform, and stress tests of banks in the country.
The month was marked by the extremely high activity of our health economist Arkadi Sharkov in the media space. In the program "Direct" on BulgariaOnAir, Sharkov discussed the problems with hospital care and the protests of doctors and nurses against the closure of "loss-making" wards in Northwestern Bulgaria and low salaries.
In "Weekdays on the Air of Eurocom", Sharkov commented on the overall state of the healthcare system and shared that in his opinion: "Healthcare is a conservative, delicate system - there is minimal interest for politicians to make reforms."
The health economist was also interviewed by the national radio about the new health model. "The new health insurance model envisages the demonopolization of the Health Fund and the opportunity for health insured persons to choose where to get insurance - in private health funds or in the Health Fund," Arkadi Sharkov commented to "Horizont".
On the topic of a new health model, the expert spoke on bTV and Europe TV. On "This Morning," Sharkov commented that the emergence of private health funds will create a competitive environment and lead to an increase in the quality of services, but remains skeptical about how this will be achieved.
This month, Sharkov was also one of the most published authors in the Economist magazine, with 5 articles: Another non-working health model, The banished drugs, The new health model – questions without answers, Even more questions than solutions. The health economist also wrote for the website clinica.bg – The situation with the new model is a catch-22.
Stoyan Panchev expressed his position on the issue of pension increases, again in the company of trade unionist Mika Zaikova. Panchev appealed to young people to start saving and investing and not to blindly rely on the bankrupt pension system.
In the program "You Have a Say" on Channel 3, the chairman of the Bulgarian Railways commented on economic topics such as: the processes at Sofia Airport, should BDZ be liquidated, is the Volkswagen plant important for Bulgaria, and others.
Stoyan Panchev's article What to expect from the ECB headed by Christine Lagarde? was published on the website Money.bg. Another of our authors, Hristian Atanasov, can be read on investor.bg if you are interested in - Ottoman money books - a harbinger of Italian mini-bots?.
Georgi Vuldjev himself had a television appearance with Mika Zaikova on Europe TV about the need for reform of our tax system. The two commented on the proposals of the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions for tax reform: "I am in favor of measures that reduce the tax burden for people with lower incomes, in this sense, the proposal for a non-taxable minimum is not a bad proposal in my opinion, but all the others are going in the wrong direction. Some of them, especially this idea of unifying the "dividend" tax with the corporate tax, would harm the investment environment and would generally be bad for economic growth," Vuldjev said.
The editor-in-chief of EKIP appeared with a comment on the pages of the newspaper "Sega" three times this month: Isn't it time to talk about pension contributions according to the Swiss model?, The poor will not benefit from the introduction of a "wealth" tax and What did the ECB stress test show about the state of banks in our country?. On the front page of the newspaper "Third Age" an interview with the economist was published about ideas for reducing VAT.
