HEALTH INSURANCE OF HEALTH PROTECTION AT WORK - In the Project of Health System Reform and in the New Law

On March 22nd, 2006, the Government of the Republic of Croatia submitted to the Croatian Parliament the Draft Law on Health Insurance of Health Protection at Work, stating that "this draft Law should harmonize Croatian legislation with the EU law.". "Croatian legislation" as mentioned in the previous sentence is numerous and includes different acts of different categories (based on subject enacting it, contents, territorial and temporal application). These are, for example, regulations on labor relations, protection at work, health protection and health insurance, etc. The Croatian parliament enacted the said Law on July 13th, 2006. It entered into force on August 3rd, 2006 (published in the Official Gazette No. 85/2006). The article analyses this new Law. Reforms of health protection and health insurance systems require new solutions (organizational, financial, legal, etc.). In that respect, a part of the existing Croatian Institute for Health Insurance would be reorganized in order to form a new fund for protection at work (comprising financial, organizational and human resources aspect); it would be called the Croatian Institute for Health Insurance of Health Protection at Work. Solutions de lege lata are analyzed and certain disagreements with the new solutions are presented, as well as a de lege ferenda proposals elaborated. "It is expected that the enforcement of proposed solutions. will result in more accurate establishment of injuries at work and professional diseases and, as a consequence, provide for a better allocation of funds within health insurance designed to cover this kind of risk." However, these revisions by themselves do not represent better guarantees of safety at work and do not ensure reduction of injuries at work, professional diseases and other diseases related to work. Therefore, this article offers further solutions. Legislative provisions are analyzed and serious criticism is given with the view of demonstrating numerous ambiguities and uncertainties.