HEALTH INSURANCE AT THE MARGINS: ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE AND OTHER HEALTH BENEFITS FOR WORKERS IN NON-STANDARD FORMS OF EMPLOYMENT IN EUROPE
HEALTH INSURANCE AT THE MARGINS: ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE AND OTHER HEALTH BENEFITS FOR WORKERS IN NON-STANDARD FORMS OF EMPLOYMENT IN EUROPE

Summary/Abstract: The key idea behind health insurance, and especially the healthcare system, can be found in the need to institutionalize empathy, support, help and solidarity. The ways to do so can be different, which can be seen in the existence of different social security systems, with more or less the same goals, but to an extent different mechanisms to achieve such goals. Our hypothesis is that, although there are problems even at the level of recognition, concerning certain forms of employment and certain workers, all individuals, regardless of their employment status, should have access to healthcare, and at least some form of health insurance. The prerequisite for the said is to reexamine the postulates about standard and non-standard employment and address them in light of the (brave) new world of work and complex relations that are being formed in that context. Therefore, our focus shall be on the deeper understanding of what was and what is considered to be standard employment and how do different situations in which workers can find themselves deviate from the mentioned. Such an analysis is necessary in order to understand some of the risks these workers are facing, as they are, from a labour law perspective, in a more vulnerable situation in comparison to those working in standard employment. That is also closely related to the issues of health insurance, as these workers are sometimes at the margins of or even left without health insurance. Particular focus is on the situation in Europe, and the use of comparative method helps us to understand the similarities and differences between the guarantees and the realities of different countries, having in mind that Europe is the “cradle” of the welfare state and that it has been a (role) model for establishing social security systems around the world.

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