Europos Sąjungos teisės įtaka privataus sveikatos draudimo teisiniam reguliavimui.

Abstract

Private health insurance is health insurance freely selected by an individual and paid from individual funds of the policyholder or from the funds of the policyholder’s employee, the object of which is property interest of an individual related with payment for individual health care services. In each Member State of the European Union health insurance system has its own specificities with private health insurance performing one of the following functions - 1) serving an alternative for the statutory health insurance; 2) complementing statutory health insurance through compensation of costs which statutory health insurance does not cover or covers only to a certain extent; 3) providing additional insurance cover to a policyholder. In terms of its functions health insurance is classified into altemative, supplementary and complementary. Private health insurance was not a part of the single insurance market in the European Union until 1992 because it was considered that policyholders in health insurance market needed special protection. Upon adoption of the Third Non-life Insurance Directive in 1992, private health insurance market in the European Union was liberalised. The Directive enabled the insurers to provide insurance services in any Member State, prohibited Member States from regulating amounts of insurance premiums and from revising and approving insurance policy conditions before issuing them to the market, established minimum solvency standards for insurers and banned discrimination ofinsurers in Member States on the grounds of their legal form. Nevertheless, the Directive reserves the right for Member States to regulate private health insurance market more tightiy than it establishes. Firstly, the Directive does not apply to legal regulation of statutory health insurance. Secondly, the Directive does not apply when statutory health insurance is fully or partially replaced by private health insurance. The laws of the Republic of Lithuania provide for a possibility of private supplementary health insurance, but smooth functioning of private health insurance market is not possible because of underdeveloped legal regulation. Private health insurance in Lithuania is govemed by the Law on Insurance which implements provisions of the European Union legislation, but the possibility of adopting a separate Law regulating private health insurance is yet to be considered.