According to the estimates of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than two-thirds of the unemployed in this entity’s unemployment records are not looking for work, but have been registered to exercise their right to health insurance. A few days ago, the Ministry announced the adoption of regulations on records and the separation of active from passive job seekers.
According to the data of the Federal Employment Agency, as of June 30, 2023, 274,820 persons were registered in the records of the cantonal employment services.
“The situation is definitely such that half of those people are abroad, so after applying a more adequate record keeping system, we could probably be surprised by the real situation. We officially have a lot of unemployed people, but we have no workforce, so it is necessary to have a record of people looking for work, who really want to work,” says economic analyst Zoran Pavlović.
Out of nearly 275,000 unemployed people, 193,078 people obtained the right to health insurance through employment services.
After the application of the new rulebook, passive job seekers will have to resolve their right to health care in a different way.
The easiest way to quickly solve this problem is universal health insurance for everyone, says economic analyst Igor Gavran, following the example of Great Britain, where all citizens residing in that country are automatically insured.
“There is no specific contribution for employee health insurance, but everything is financed from the unified social insurance and taxes. Many years ago, the Federal Institute for Development Programming proposed a reform of the system that would completely abolish the payment of health insurance contributions, and the system would be financed from taxes, which would also free up employers, so the cost of labor would be lower.
A few years ago, CS also promised that all citizens would be insured, regardless of status, but it has long been no longer mentioned,” adds Gavran.
Federal Minister Adnan Delić claims that no one will be left without mandatory health insurance. In the explanation, he emphasizes that this right is guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution, but also that the employment services currently service health insurance for about 195,000 people, or more than 70 percent of the total number of unemployed.
“We believe that it is necessary to change the legal regulations in such a way that health insurance institutes service health insurance in the future, and that employment services exclusively deal with employment mediation issues.
For the implementation of this recommendation, it is necessary to ensure the right to mandatory health insurance for all persons residing in the FBiH who are not insured on other grounds, according to the regulations on health insurance in the FBiH,” said Delić, Avaz reports.
Delić: Amend the legal regulations. Facebook
Simply solved
For the gradual implementation of this recommendation, it is important to use the possibilities of the IT system, to better connect health care institutes, cantonal employment services and the FBiH Tax Administration, which would solve a large part of the technical issues, according to Delić.
– The implementation of this recommendation must also resolve the financing of mandatory health insurance, especially for people who are not active job seekers. Given that it is not a question of large funds, and that in the existing system there are already secured funds for part of the users, this could also be easily resolved – emphasized Delić.
