Czech press survey - November 1

Nearly 84 percent of the total costs of the Czech healthcare system is covered by public finances, which is markedly higher than in Austria, France or Germany. This portion is the fourth highest in the OECD, Honzejk says.

And now it will be even higher, he adds.

However, the increase is legitimate and in a country where elections can be won thanks to a protest against 30 crown fees for visiting a doctor it seems even logical, Honzejk writes.

The opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) crushed the ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) in the regional elections in 2008 by sharply criticising the then newly introduced fees.

Now a revolution seems to be threatening when the Health Ministry proposes that dental fillings should be paid by patients in cash and not covered from the compulsory health insurance, Honzejk writes.

He says the CSSD will have a hard task when it takes power because one can hardly imagine how it may apply more leftist methods in health care than the current right-wing government, Honzejk says.

Elsewhere in Hospodarske noviny, Jindrich Sidlo says it seems unimportant whether Bohuslav Svoboda will defend his post of the chairman of the Prague ODS branch.

If Svoboda keeps his post it will be only thanks to those whom he managed to defeat a year ago, Sidlo writes, referring to Svoboda´s decision to end the coalition with the CSSD and form a new one with TOP 09 and to force the group around ODS MP Boris Stastny to give up.

This victory made Svoboda believe that now he can manage all only by his authority and power as the ODS is lost in Prague without him, Sidlo says.

Svoboda believed he is a sort of a Czech version of London Mayor Boris Johnson whom the leaders of the Conservative Party do not love very much, yet they know that without him their position in London would be much worse than with him, Sidlo writes.

Svoboda made a lot of mistakes in the past year and the biggest one was that he forgot what party he was in, he notes.

The ODS seems to be a party that does not want to win any elections anymore and it behaves accordingly, Sidlo concludes.

The U.S. visit of Jan Fischer, the favourite of the forthcoming Czech presidential election, seemed impressive but reality is rather different, Daniel Kaiser writes in Lidove noviny.

In late September, Fischer met Henry Kissinger and John McCain in the United States and Czech journalists accompanying Fischer wrote that Kissinger was very interested in what is going on in the Czech Republic and McCain promised to come to Fischer´s presidential inauguration, Kaiser says.

But it turned out that Fischer had to pay to the mediator of the audience with Kissinger and that the journalists from Pravo daily and Tyden weekly who wrote about the successful trip had their flight tickets paid by Fischer, Kaiser writes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz