The Pension and Disability Insurance Fund transfers around 13.7 billion denars annually—more than €220 million—to the Health Insurance Fund to cover pensioners’ healthcare costs, the fund’s director, Nikolla Memov, said.

Memov believes this financing model should be reviewed and that these costs should no longer be covered by the pension contributions of current employees.

Currently, 11.8% of net pension payments is allocated to pensioners’ health insurance. Until December 31, 2025, the rate was 13%, the director of the Pension Fund explained.

“On an annual basis, this amount reaches 13.7 billion denars, or more than €220 million,” Memov said.

According to him, these funds come from pension insurance contributions paid by employees, placing an additional burden on the fund.

“There must be a change, and another way must be found to finance pensioners’ health insurance, rather than the current model—through pension insurance contributions,” he added.

North Macedonia’s pension system is based on intergenerational solidarity, with employees’ contributions used to finance the entitlements of current pensioners. The pension and disability insurance contribution is 18% of gross salary, while for people covered by the two-pillar system, six percentage points are transferred to the second pillar.

Memov’s proposal is not intended to reduce the cost of pensioners’ health insurance, but to change the source from which that cost is financed.

Such a change would allow some of the funds to remain in the Pension Fund. However, Memov has not yet specified what the alternative source for securing the €220 million would be.

The post Memov: More Than €220 Million Transferred Annually for Pensioners’ Health Insurance, Financing Scheme Changes Needed appeared first on Albeu.com.

SDSM accused the government led by Hristijan Mickoski of harming pensioners by opting for linear pension increases instead of the harmonization methodology adopted by the previous government.

According to the opposition, the 1,000-denar increases planned for September 2025 and March 2026 have given pensioners less income than they would have received if SDSM’s methodology had been implemented.

The opposition party calculates that the September 2025 harmonization would have provided pensioners receiving the lowest pensions with an increase of 1,280 denars. For pensions in the higher categories, the increase would have ranged from 1,550 to 3,100 denars, while the average would have been around 2,000 denars.

SDSM also says that in March 2026, pensioners would have received between 1,500 and 1,800 denars instead of the same linear amount of 1,000 denars if its harmonization model had continued.

“The government’s linear model harmed all pensioners,” SDSM said, claiming that as a result of this policy, all 347,296 pensioners lost part of the funds they would have been entitled to under the previous methodology.

The opposition also criticized the government’s announcement that it would return to the methodology for harmonizing pensions. According to SDSM, with this move Mickoski also deceived pensioners.

The post SDSM: The government’s linear pension increases harmed pensioners; harmonization should have continued appeared first on Albeu.com.