January the 18th, 2022 - Following the release of the official results of last year's Croatian census, which revealed not only another worrying drop in numbers in terms of the population but other uncomfortable facts such as the sheer amount of those remaining people who drawing their pensions, it has turned out that there are very many ''phantom'' Croatian Health Insurance policy holders, too.
The hunt is now on to find 209,000 Croatian Health Insurance policy holders who aren't even registered as living in the country at all. HZZO (Croatian Health Insurance Fund) has its work cut out when it comes to cancelling the policies of all those who are still likely coming home for treatment but live elsewhere.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, despite the fact that the 2021 census has revealed that all of the country's counties as well as the City of Zagreb have fewer inhabitants than they had 10 years ago, Croatia still has 209,000 more Croatian Health Insurance policy holders than registered residents and more voters than adult citizens, writes Vecernji list.
According to the first results of last year's census, the Republic of Croatia has a maximum of 3,888,529 inhabitants, while on January the 3rd, 2022, it somehow had as many as 4,097,903 Croatian Health Insurance policy holders.
After the census, the voter register, which includes 3,690,623 adult citizens, will have to be "cleaned up".
Demographers have previously warned about issues caused by fictitious or ''phantom'' Croatian Health Insurance policy holders, explaining that they are most likely Croatian citizens or residents, Serbs who have left Croatia, Croats from neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian citizens who emigrated but didn't ''check out'' of the system, and foreigners who own real estate in the country but don't live here.
It isn't possible to estimate just how many of these insured persons who aren't residents of Croatia use the so-called "free" healthcare, and how many are no longer here, don't use the system, and are only formally still registered with HZZO.
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