The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 177ERASED RIGHTS, INVISIBLE DISEASES177It is clear from the table above that the percentage of people who had continuoushealth insurance is low (15.25 percent). These were mainly persons wholost their jobs after the erasure but were able to obtain status based on temporarywork permits. The share of non-insured people is much larger (66.10 percent).Many among them have remained without health insurance to the present day,or lived without it for a long time; most obtained it only after they acquired a permanentresidence permit or Slovenian citizenship. However, there are persons inthe category “16 or over” who have not been able to obtain health insurance forvarious reasons, even though they obtained legal status (because of financial oradministrative obstacles, or because they lacked initiative). People who livedabroad for a longer period of time (or still live there) and made various insurancearrangements there also account for an important share in the table above. Thehealth insurance system that is in place is Bosnia-Herzegovina is organized insuch a way that the major part of health care services is not covered by insurance.The testimonies of two people who have health insurance in Germany and Austriashow that health insurance systems in these two countries are better organized.The interviews with the erased people show that, in attempting to obtainhealth insurance, uninsured persons resorted to various methods (involving commercialinsurance companies, family members etc.), but these attempts usuallyfailed because “health insurance policy was tied to the status of citizen or fo -reigner with permanent residence permit” (see the contribution by Jelka Zorn inthis book – p. 37). At the same time, health insurance was frequently a prere -quisite for accessing other segments of the system, which created still anotherendless labyrinth for the erased people. That there were some escape routesfrom this labyrinth is proved by Simon’s story. Simon (40) who had no health insurancefor 11 years, had to provide a certificate of health insurance to be ableto enroll in the Faculty of Forestry. He inquired at various insurance companies,but they all required a certificate of citizenship – Slovenian or other – which hecould not produce. However, after some time he managed to obtain insurancefrom the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia.3. A hurdle race: erased people in health care institutionsDifficulties in accessing health care institutions contributed significantlyto the deterioration of erased people’s health, with the erased persons wholacked even basic health insurance being most affected. The table below showsthe approaches they used to access health care institutions. Let us stress againthat the data in the table are exclusively those provided by erased people ontheir own initiative, and that the picture would probably be different had thestudy probed this issue more deeply. It seems that the interviewees highlightedonly the most important events and neglected many minor ones.