TOL Hungary

After the Referendum

March 12th, 2008 by robertnemeth

Hungarians have voted on a referendum where they literally voted about some recently introduced fees, and, according to the opposition, about the government itself. With an overwhelming majority they rejected the fees.

These were the co-payment when visiting a doctor and when staying in the hospital, and the tuition fee at the universities. All of them were part of the reform by the government to decrease public spending. However, the voters rejected them with an almost never seen majority (on Hungarian referendums): out of the 8 million people who are eligible to vote, 3.3 million voted against the fees (with a participation of around 50 percent).

Still, even though it suffered a big defeat, the government vowed to stay at its place, but the consequences of the decision start to be visible. Before the referendum, some doctors started the campaign in favor of the co-payment, now they say that they will miss this income very much. Universities say that they will not have money for development (while student organizations welcomed the result). The government said namely that in the budget there is no money to replace the fees.

But there is still one more aspect. The government said that with these fees the attitude of people could be changed, since, according to surveys, in Hungary, the majority of the people does not know and think about the fact that the “free” health-care and education is paid from the taxes. Now it seems that the message did not really reach them.

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