In search of due civil and human rights

Recently an acquaintance, unemployed like me, told me that she was not paying her monthly health insurance. On the one hand, I understand her, since I was in the same situation. Health care in Bulgaria is not at a particularly high level, especially outside the capital, where the people who are left to live do not have any demands or claims towards the state anyway. They just accept the situation as it is. On the other hand, paying the monthly health insurance doesn't mean much. Because nothing is free for patients anyway and they always have to pay some fees. Even in the laboratory, during the annual mandatory "technical" examinations, performing the "free" procedures due to everyone. One would say that these annual examinations were invented not to regularly control the condition of people, ie. for their own good, but to absorb some money in the treasury.

But at the same time, she is the mother of a little child who is often sick, she pays for him the insanely high prices for examinations and tests in the capital (children's health care is not free in any case). And when she gets sick herself, she just waits for it to pass so she doesn't pay these insanely high prices for herself too.
At the same time, health insurance in Bulgaria is mandatory! And I would very much like to know if this is the case in your countries as well. Because when you're unemployed, that is, you can't get a job and there's no employer to pay your insurance and you don't have that option either, these liabilities just pile up along with the interest on your account with the revenue agency.

Thus, at any moment, and on any possible occasion, the state, through an official, can make demands for these unpaid debts to it, and this can cause many headaches.

At the same time, a person can restore his healthcare rights, i.e. can be entitled to a GP with all the associated reductions in examinations and fees, only if he has paid all his debts for the last 5 years intermittently. However... at the same time (too many "at the same time", but this is how complicated and illogical the legislation in Bulgaria is), on the other hand, your account with the revenue agency always has your liabilities for the last 10 years as active. So here comes a tangled and complex legal case that can only be resolved with the intervention of a lawyer, and an experienced lawyer at that.
Because whenever you are dealing with the state administration, one has to communicate with them through a lawyer. You can pay your debts for 5 years back, and have the right to have a GP, but if older debts are listed on the agency's website, paying the new ones is an extremely complicated procedure that requires additional expenses every month, etc. etc.

Now it's time to ask how all these debts accumulated. Well, there are still people who work without an employment contract and insurance, but so many obligations usually accumulate when one goes abroad. Both I and my acquaintance have been abroad, and when we returned to Bulgaria later, it became complicated. Although it has been said that health insurance paid in other EU countries is recognized, sometimes this is not the case and it is not as simple as it seems to be and should be.

The first big and firm NO I received from the headquarters of the National Health Fund regarding the recognition of these insurances was in 2018. Then I just gave up. There is no point in arguing with the state machine, even when you are in the right and have all the documents and evidence.

But then, when the covid crisis came in 2020, I thought about what I would do if I got sick and had to lie in hospital. I don't have that much money, it just seemed unthinkable to me. So I made another attempt. I submitted an application once again, this time at a branch of the health fund, with all the documents again confirming that I am entitled to request this recognition. I got rejected again. Although from Belgium, the Bulgarian health fund received again the same simple and clear answer that it had received two years ago as well - the person was insured with us from this date and year to this date and year. It was completely absurd.

So I turned to a lawyer. The lawyer advised, I translated the letter with an authorized translator, signed and stamped, found contacts in another city where people consulted in the local high-level revenue agency, and then went alone to the local branch again to explain and persuade, to ask for my rights to be recognized.

At the time, I didn't even realize how humiliating it all was and how much time and money I had wasted trying to achieve it, with all the different available, possible and impossible means. Just looking for my rights. Civil and human.

A woman just took pity on me at last, after much persuasion, and decided to take matters into her own hands, ie. to do something. And she just canceled my duties in the system. With a click of the mouse. It was so simple yet so complicated.

So my rights were restored, I was entitled to a GP to refer me to a specialist for a fee, but I had some older debts which by law can be canceled as well, but this is only done by applying in writing, which you personally have to release. So here I am sending this request on the advice of the branch staff and I never got a response.

From then on, for months, every month it was necessary to go to the regional city, to submit applications for payment for a specific month, because otherwise, in the presence of old obligations, even those that can be canceled by law, the new ones cannot be paid, the old ones are automatically paid first.

And so until the beginning of this year, when to all this is added a fee for making these monthly installments, which is paid to the bank. The government machinery is always in the process of coming up with new and new charges to burden the little unemployed and desperate person.

And again I had to contact a lawyer. Whose service, I can't even afford to pay.

In fact, it all happened by accident. This lawyer had come to visit and happened to learn about the debt forgiveness application I was about to submit once again. He looked at the standard form that I had been given at the health insurance branch and said that the text in this standard document was written in ambiguous terms. So that at any moment the officials have a reason to reject my request. As it happened last time.

So he wrote the application himself and put his name at the bottom, as if he was a lawyer hired by me to solve this so prosaic case, to get the public servants to just do the work they are paid to do. Because that's exactly what happened. Under the threat of the lawyer, the officials from the capital answered me quickly. Then they canceled my old obligations, which are legally cancellable.

And now I can pay my monthly health bills online, without paying the crazy bank fee at the bank counter, and without going to the regional city.

All this took me 6 years. And it ended in April this year. And after this vile and unequal battle, a whole war, perhaps you begin to understand a little why I feel this way about this country and why I do not want to live here.

And as an irony to what I wrote, I put pictures of lunch in a restaurant. There has to be at least something good in this post 😂

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|