After Prime Minister Ivo Sanader met social partners on Wednesday to discuss the matter, Health Minister Neven Ljubicic said thatt the government attached a lot of importance to maintaining social dialogue and it decided to withdraw the draft act following objections made by employers and unionists.
Representatives of trade unions said that the trade unions had nothing against reforms in public health but they opposed reforms which placed profit above health.
Asked by reporters about the stage of preparations of a new draft act on health insurance, the minister said the draft had not yet been prepared and that the government would soon have some blueprints which would be sent to social partners to gain an insight.
He added that he hoped that the 2006 budget, which the parliament adopted yesterday, would cover all costs in public health.
Asked to comment on the resignation offered by the director of the Croatian Health Insurance Institute, Veceslav Bergman, Ljubicic said the government would soon discuss the issue.
The minister reiterated that it was inappropriate for Bergman to say ahead of the adoption of the 2006 budget that the public health sector would need an additional two billion kuna for its normal functioning in 2006.