Healthcare policy is changeable

Georgia's healthcare system continues to face persistent challenges despite implementing four different funding reform schemes since independence. Over the past decade, the universal approach has produced chronically deficit-prone budgets with steadily rising costs. The government responded by intensifying regulation, including price controls on medical services and pharmaceuticals, using diagnosis-related grouping methodology to set fees.

However, healthcare experts contend this regulatory approach remains ineffective. Global experience from healthcare systems demonstrates that diagnosis-based pricing, while occasionally reducing individual service costs, frequently leads to insufficient treatment, compromised quality, increased readmissions, and patient discrimination. The current system conflates social assistance with health insurance, functions that government bureaucracies cannot efficiently coordinate, ultimately creating misaligned incentives throughout the sector.