OBJECTIVES: With the advancing process of HTA in the Czech Republic question emerged such as what is the willingness to pay (WTP) for health and life as well as what is the general awareness of the national health care policy and health economics. So far all estimations of WTP were largely based on academic deductions, thus we adopted a previously published approach to estimate the empirical WTP. METHODS: 381 doctors of 15 specializations and 500 respondents from general population, both matching the CZ demography, were interviewed online. Doctors were asked directly to suggest reasonable WTP per equivalent of QALY. The general public was interview using the dichotomous double bounded choice method. The value of WTP, including 95% confidence interval, was determined using proc lifereg of the SAS system that allowed estimating averages for interval data. Optimal parametric extrapolation of the data was chosen based on the minimum value of Akaike’s information criterion (AIC). RESULTS: Economics is the last criterion considered as important by doctors following the quality of life, clinical parameters and ethical/social aspects. Doctors not rejecting the concept of paying for health (28%) produced median of CZK 700,000 (EUR 27,129) to be an adequate payment for an extra year in full health, representing one QALY. General population suggested CZK 18.4 million (EUR 731,110) as an adequate WTP to be paid by the national health insurance fund, largely in contrast to only CZK 177,000 (EUR 6859) as suggested for the pay-of-pocket WTP. CONCLUSIONS: The awareness about health economics and its methodology is rather low among doctors and general public.  While those medical doctors who expressed understanding for the concept of WTP and QALY suggested a value similar with the implicit WTP of CZK 1,000,000 (EUR 38,756) general public suggested extreme WTP from public budget, reflecting distant position of the public.