When luring clients away from competitors, health insurers focus on poor Roma

When luring clients away from competitors, health insurers focus on poor Roma, who tend to avoid doctors and are thus a source of profits for them. Fully 80% of Slovaks have not changed their insurer over the past decade, but 26,000 Slovaks have changed it at least six times, data from the Value for Money unit show. Almost all ’frequent changers’ live in villages with a high proportion of Roma people. Their health condition is among the worst in the country―infant mortality rate is 3-times the Slovak average, for instance. Changing health insurer does not improve their health outcomes.

(dennikN.sk)