I. VOLKOVA (Novoye Slovo newspaper): The law under which social benefits will be replaced by cash payments takes effect from January 1, 2005. This law caused a big stir, shall we say, in the regions. Beneficiaries have a lot of concerns regarding this reform. In particular, I want to mention the case of people in the far north. They are worried, of course, by what will happen to the system of compensation and guarantees for people in the far north. Draft federal laws on a district system in the far north are currently being worked on as is a new draft of the law on guarantees and compensation for people living and working in the far north and areas considered as having the same status.
In this respect, my question is, what does the future hold for people in the harsh northern regions? Will the benefits people in the far north receive be maintained in full, or will they be reviewed?
And one other thing, everyone wants you to come and visit them, and we say, come and visit us too.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Thank you. It’s cold where you come from.
I. VOLKOVA: So what?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: What’s the temperature in Yakutia at the moment? In a few towns in Yakutia it is minus 45. 52? That’s terrible. Nevertheless, I always go where it is needed, including to the north where I have been on several occasions and intend to visit in the future.
As to the important block of issues you mentioned, the replacement of in-kind benefits with cash payments. Of course, I understand people, that they have given the government’s proposals a cautious welcome, but this is because the state has let down people before, saying one thing but doing something else or nothing at all. But keeping the old system of benefits for people who need state support would also have been impracticable, because great sums were allocated but did not reach the people in full. And then a great deal of what the state promised never happened.
Take medicine. What was the system? Money from regional budgets, and through regional budgets from the federal one was often sent via various channels and using different methods to pharmaceutical companies, or to be more precise companies involved in buying and selling medicine. As a rule, people entitled to free treatment could not receive it.
What happened in practice? An elderly person comes to a pharmacy and produces his prescription, but is told he cannot be given his medicine for free. There is nothing for prescriptions, but there is if you pay. The person pays the money for his free medicine, but he is still asked to leave the prescription at the pharmacy. With this kind of system, there would never be enough money, because more than half is stolen. In the market system, the old ways of distribution, and state support had started to work ineffectively. This is the crux of the matter.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the state has never given such large funds, I would even say enormous funds, to support the weakest sections of the population and benefits. The federal budget will allocate six times, not 20% or, 30, 40 or even 50%, but six times more money to this end. Until 2006, the main parameters – medicine, transport and treatment in sanatoria – will be maintained as benefits in-kind. Why? Because if a person receives a certain amount of money, and then leaves out of this money 450 roubles on these benefits, then receives them, he gets more than the 450 roubles. From January 1, 2006 people will choose between in-kind benefits and cash payments.
I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that people should decide on this issue in May 2005. And this is already bringing to life, I would say, a competitive environment from the standpoint of these benefits, because even now those, for example, health centres that deal with benefits are already thinking about how to lower their prices and improve service. They want to retain these people as potential customers. And in contemporary conditions, I think that this system is far better grounded and targeted, which is the most important thing.
As to northerners, then no serious changes here are envisaged. The only thing that I would consider right is to go back to the sustem, to create conditions where people living in other regions could receive pensions earned in the north. I think that we need to return to this. The Finance Ministry, of course, is avoiding the issue, suggesting that it would have to spend a great deal of money on these aims, but this would still help people who had worked for many years in a difficult climate to gradually leave these regions, and the social burden, the state burden in the social sphere would decline. In the final analysis, the state is interested in this.
Nevertheless, I would like to say one thing. Of course, there are categories of claimants that are supported by regional budgets: repressed people, home front workers and labour veterans. Regional authorities, of course, should pay greater attention to ensuring that these people do not end up in a worse situation than other claimants. You know, I recently met one distant relative, who is already a pensioner. And she told me that she was okay because she had a son, but her friend who was also a pensioner had a very small pension. These are people from intelligentsiya, former university teachers. First, the price of medicine is always going up, it’s expensive for her; even using city transport is becoming more and more expensive. In this sense, of course, all the levels of authority, both the federal and regional – must pay attention to these claimants.
I should say that I mentioned the fact that the federal budget has increased its expenses by six times, but this should prompt regional authorities to do the same. I was told today that even such a less affluent territory as the Ulyanovsk region had increased spending on this category of claimants by three times. I hope that other regions will pay attention to this.
http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2004/12/23/1806_81700.shtml
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