Finance Minister Zdravko Maric said on Wednesday the government was not discussing an increase in employer health insurance contributions and that a solution to the financial stabilisation of the health system should be sought on the expenditure side of the system.

Asked whether employer health insurance contributions would increase after the local election, Marić said that “that topic is not on the table,” and that the government had not discussed it at all.

“There is no mention of health contributions in the government’s programme and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) election platform,” said Marić.

He said that the government was implementing activities related to reducing the tax burden on citizens and the business sector and would continue doing so, but repeated that the solution for the health system’s financial stability should not be looked for on its revenue side.

He recalled that in 2019 the state had increased the rate for the employer health insurance contribution from 15.5 to 16.5 percent while at the same time it abolished contributions for unemployment and work injuries, which resulted in an overall tax relief of HRK 900 million and increased revenue in the health system by HRK 1.4 billion a year.

However, that did not resolve the financial problems in the health sector and the solution needs to be sought also on the expenditure side, he reiterated.

Asked whether HRK 3.5 billion could be found in the budget to settle the debt to drug wholesalers, Maric said that “the state has to and will pay its liabilities.”

“It would be great if those debts were related to the past but the health system is generating new debts. Everything needs to be done so new debts are not generated,” he added.

“The health system needs to be financially sustainable for us to have the current quality and access to health,” he added.

As for short-term measures, Maric said that the state “would conduct an accelerated transfer towards the Croatian Health Insurance Institute and make a one-off payment to cover part of the hospitals’ debt to pharmacies” while at the same time working on “making savings.”

Maric denied that a budget revision would be necessary in the next month or two as a result of settling these debts.

“That won’t be happening in the short term,” he said, adding that the first opportunity to analyse the macroeconomic and fiscal outlook was at the end of April when the government should discuss the national convergence programme.