Frequently asked questions
Subsidies
How are government subsidies to truly private insurance schemes recorded?
(See PG 10.19) If an insurance scheme truly is private – that is, not controlled by the government – then the government (or other entity) should be shown as a source of funds for the insurance scheme to the extent of any subsidy. Of course, if the government materially controls the insurance scheme, then the scheme is not truly private and should be treated as an extrabudgetary entity. The total addition to national health expenditure of the insurance scheme is the value of the premiums it earns plus subsidies received to supplement those premiums.
Is ‘loans and subsidies to providers’ a part of the value of services they deliver?
(See PG 12.23) New loans received by providers and loan repayments made by them are excluded from the value of goods and services they deliver. In cases where market or quasi-market prices are in effect, this restriction is not a problem. In cases where the value of the provider’s activity is estimated by adding together the values of inputs used, care must be taken to exclude any changes in financial assets that might appear in the provider’s records; usually this is not a problem because accounting principles call for the separation of balance sheet items from income and expense items. It is appropriate to include interest payments made on debt incurred in the course of health-related activity; again, most accounting systems will show these figures among income and expense items. This treatment of loans and loan repayments is the same as that for financing agents.