Web-economic-crisis-health-systems-and-health-web

Croatia
Martina Bogut
Economic trends
• Croatia's economy contracted in 2009 and 2010, and while economic growth
was positive by 2011, it remained below pre-crisis levels and the European
average. By contrast, the unemployment rate failed to recover after 2008.
Government health spending as a share of total government expenditure has
been stable and high compared with other European countries.
• Growth in health spending per capita has been volatile since the early
2000s. All health care financing sources reduced their spending in 2009
and 2010 (Croatia: Fig. 1).
• Croatia Fig 2 gives the trends in per capita spending on health.
Policy responses
Changes to public funding for the health system
• Deficits in public spending on health preceded the crisis.
• Legislation was introduced to require government departments, including the
Ministry of Health, to maintain fiscal balance (2011), with new borrowing
only permitted to cover previous liabilities or development projects.
• From 2011, the government budget was to be reduced annually by one
percentage point of projected GDP.
• SHI contributions on pensions were introduced, with varying rates
depending on pension income (2011): SHI contributions on wages were
reduced from 15% to 13% to reduce labour costs (2012).
• Earmarking of tobacco tax revenue for health was introduced (2011).
Changes to health coverage
Population (entitlement)
• No response reported.
The benefits package
• Addition of 64 new drugs to the positive list achieved through savings from
improvements in pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement (2010).
• Introduction of criteria for including drugs in basic and supplementary lists
of covered drugs (2012).