Since the referendum, the government has approached the verge of collapse. The health minister who had championed the controversial measures has been fired, and the ruling coalition has dissolved because of her dismissal.
Why all the fuss? The reasons may sound familiar to U.S. voters.
Health-care costs in Hungary, as in the United States, are growing too fast. But Hungary, unlike the United States, has a tax-based health-care system in which only the employed are required to pay taxes, thereby bearing a disproportionately heavy burden of financing health care for everyone among Hungary's 10 million people.
For years this worked. But the Hungarian population has grown old and the national economy has become bogged down in deficit spending and debt.
Taxes already are chokingly high: For a two-earner family with two children, income taxes - along with contributions employers and employees make to the government for pensions, unemployment and health insurance - account for 43 percent to 45 percent of labor costs in Hungary. In the United States, this accounts for 22 percent to 25 percent of labor costs, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
During the campaign that led to Gyurcsany's reelection two years ago, he promised voters he would not impose fees (similar to co-pays), despite claims by the opposition he had a secret plan to do so.
Hungarian voters were outraged when, in December 2006, the parliament passed laws authorizing fees. As of February 2007, people were required to pay a portion of the cost of visiting a doctor or being treated in a hospital. Although the fees were small (less than $2 per visit or per day spent in a hospital), the measure was met with anger.
