Russia: Union of Patients asks Putin to abandon changes to compulsory medical insurance system
The All-Russian Union of Patients asks Vladimir Putin to abandon changes to the compulsory medical insurance system
14.10.2025
Article published on the ASI website
The All-Russian Union of Patients (RUP) has criticised a bill that would allow regional leaders to transfer the functions of health insurance organisations to territorial medical insurance funds.
The RUP has appealed to the Russian President, Federation Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and Chair of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, Valery Fadeev, not to approve a bill amending the law “On Compulsory Medical Insurance”, reports the media outlet RBC.
The RUP says that the proposed changes will deprive patients of independent advocates for their rights and undermine the system of quality control in healthcare. Their experts believe that such a reform could lead to the complete removal of a key independent element of the compulsory health insurance system – insurance companies, which perform two important functions: protecting patients’ rights and conducting independent oversight. Inequalities could also arise between regions as governors may make different decisions (the bill gives them the right but not the obligation to do so).
According to the Ministry of Health, the bill will save budget funds as “the costs of maintaining the infrastructure for specialist work and patient support in compulsory territorial medical insurance funds will be lower than those of overseeing medical insurance organisations”. In principle, the approach outlined in the bill “will allow the mandatory health insurance system to be tailored to the specific needs of the population in each region” and “expedite the management decision-making process”.
The Ministry also says there is no reason to believe that independent control over medical services will become worse than it was before as the “assessment of the quality of medical care will not be carried out by a medical insurance organisation or a territorial compulsory health insurance fund, but by an independent expert included on a unified register”.
Since the Bill stipulates that the governor’s decision will remain in effect for at least three years, Roman Shcheglevatykh, Vice-President of the All-Russian Union of Insurers, noted that adoption of the bill would lead to the closure of insurance companies within the first year. He stated that “without funding, it will be impossible to retain staff or IT infrastructure” since “no-one will wait three years for the decision to change and no-one will come back”.
