INESS

Recently publicized case of a child who was not reimbursed by his health insurance company for a requested medicine illustrates the broken world of medicine. Lots of regulations  and little market is supposed to protect patients, but it often works exactly the opposite. A three-year-old boy from Slovakia suffers from Dravet syndrome, a severe form of congenital epilepsy characterized by dozens of seizures each day.

This year, the Economics Olympiad attracted once again the interest of more than 10,000 young Slovaks and helped them to gain appreciation and recognition for their knowledge and skills in the fields of economics and finance. The sixth year of the Economics Olympiad for high-school students was concluded with the finals, which took place on Thursday, 4th May 2023 at the Hotel Devín in Bratislava.

INESS once again organized the popular conference Free Market Road Show in cooperation with the Austrian Economics Center as part of the international conference tour. Its main focus was the current problems of the energy market in Europe, the challenges faced by entrepreneurs as well as energy suppliers.

Education is like an enormous oceanic ship where no one can change the course quickly, even if everyone can see that they are heading for an iceberg. Enough politicians have been burned in Slovakia who have taken command, announced a new course, and started turning the steering wheel, but nothing happened to the ship.

Public healthcare should also work with priorities. What has more priority? Financial or geographical accessibility? Quality or quantity? What should be clearly free and, conversely, what is the Slovak patient-insured-consumer willing to pay for?

Since 2006, most of the time Slovakia has been ruled by politicians who have emphasized the role of the welfare state. The concept of pre-election welfare packages has become more popular and has become an integral part of mainstream politics, regardless of the phase of the election cycle.

The term \"wage\" and its size are very important in national discussions about labor markets, taxes and insurance payments, but also part of international comparisons for investors deciding to build a factory or to place investments in a specific country. A lot of confusion has been created by the introduction of gross wage with arbitrary distinction between \"employee paid\" and \"employer paid\" taxes and contributions.

It makes a big difference whether the state directly funds the operation of restaurants or \"merely\" mandates the issuance of food stamps, or whether restaurants are funded by paying customers.

The current energy crisis is a huge lesson for the Green Deal. Ambitious goals, boldly planned in a period of cheap and available energy, are much more difficult and expensive to achieve in a period of scarcity and uncertainty.

The pandemic period has not been kind to some patients\' relationship with health professionals. A period of information uncertainty, spawning hoaxes. The patient with their own opinion and their own information falls under a crooked gaze.