The measures include cutting the funds for acute hospital treatment by 2%, curbing the budget for standby duty payments and for tertiary health-care services by 5%.

Health Minister Dorjan Marusic meanwhile expressed doubt whether today's proposals were truly the most suitable, adding that the institute's partners would not accept the measures proposed by the budget.

The government's representatives abstained from voting, because they believe that the ZSSS should draft a proposal which would include transferring a part of funding from the mandatory health insurance to supplementary health insurers.

This comes as a change of heart from the government, because its representatives were against such measures in July, when the assembly failed to endorse the supplementary budget despite the need for closing a gaping EUR 40m hole the health purse manager created in the first months of 2011.

ZZZS general manager Samo Fakin meanwhile warned that such a measure could only step into force on 1 December, bringing little money to the institute's purse by the end of the year.

The assembly however backed a proposal for extending the transferring of parts of funding for mandatory insurance to supplementary health insurers to the next year, which will secure some EUR 40m on a yearly basis.

Fakin also said he knew that the endorsement of the austerity budget was only the first step toward financial security, as the government will also have to back it.

"This is the ZZZS's message that health care overhaul has to be tackled with deliberation," he said adding that the cut in the funding for hospitals was such that they could handle it.

Lucka Bohm, a representative of the unions, said that the supplementary budget had to be pushed through, but that new, different solutions will have to be found, already for the 2012 financial plan.

Employers on the other hand stressed that one should consider Slovenia's macroeconomic situation when deliberating the supplementary budget, as the state could scarcely collect heath care contributions at the current levels of unemployment.