EU to study impact of cross-border health care

"According to the Treaty, health is a member states' competence and we need to respect that. We should not touch the issue unless we have extremely good grounds for doing so," said the health attaché of the Finnish Permanent representation. "However, we need something to protect health systems against the Court's case-law. I'd prefer a narrow scope for action - something that can actually be dealt with and on which the EU can really bring some clarification and/or value added. I'm worried that if we go quickly to regulation, we might be entering a chain of regulations. Therefore directive would be better."

The health attaché of the German Permanent representation presented the Germany's initial response to the consultation saying that "the 2007 Communication should clearly separate four things: the case of long-term residents, the status of which need to be reformed; the case of real cross-border movers seeking health care, on which we need legislation and some kind of co-operation mechanism between the member states, such as bilateral treaties; the mobility of health professionals, on which clarification is needed, and; legal certainty of the systems themselves, some steering instruments to guarantee the sustainability of the systems.

"We have to find a solid ground for legislative acts - otherwise we are in trouble," said Rotislava Dimitrova, a policy adviser at the European Parliament.

Tamsin Rose, representing the Swedish national health institue highlighted the importance of continuity of care (ensuring quality) in case of the use of cross-border health services. She also said that those paying themselves (private care seekers) and those sent by/reimbursed by their national governments, who are the ones "causing panic to national health care systems" need to be separated. In the end, the "elephant in the kitchen" question, according to her, is to know whether private seekers of health care should be reimbursed as well.