EU health bill pulled amid national and MEP criticism
By Honor Mahony
The European Commission last month delayed proposals to shake up the EU's health market due to protests among member states and lobbying from MEPs, EU officials are now admitting.
The proposals on patients' right to medical treatment in other member states, due to be unveiled on 19 December, were shelved at the last minute following the harsh criticism.
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The official line for withdrawing the legislation was a "very over-loaded agenda" but a commission official told EUobserver that that there had been a "huge fight with the European Parliament."
In addition, noted the official, "several member states were against [the proposal] because they thought it would destroy their national health systems," with Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands said to be among those kicking up a storm.
Health commissioner Markos Kyprianou's draft bill stressed patients' right to freedom of movement - a basic tenet of the EU internal market - and said that the way member states organise their health systems is not an excuse for denying patients this right.
It also said that up to a certain level, national health systems have to refund patients when they get medical treatment in a member state other than their own.
Health service shopping
An official in the European Parliament familiar with the proposal said the feeling among its critics was that it "it went much too far in giving total freedom of mobility" and came too close to "health service shopping."
MEPs want the new proposal to make it clear that national health service need first to authorise patients going abroad for medical treatment and that the priority should be for rare diseases.
Member states' biggest fear was they were going to lose control over their health budget by not being able to predict how many claims were going to come in.
The level of protest was such that it was clear that both the European Parliament and member states were going to kill it off at the earliest chance in the legislative process.
The proposal is now expected to be revised and published in February, according to the commission's health spokesperson.
Upsetting treaty ratification?
Danish MEP and head of the European Socialists Party Poul Nyrup Rasmussen also actively lobbied against the bill, writing to social democrat commissioners early in December to say the draft proposal was unacceptable.
He fears that the debate about the legislation could undermine ratification of the EU's new treaty.
"If the Commission presents the directive in its current form, it will create political chaos in some member states in a very sensitive period with ratification of the treaty and the run-up to European Parliament elections in 2009," his letter says, according to Danish daily Politiken.
Following the ill-fated EU constitution, which was rejected in France and then the Netherlands in 2005, the EU is being particularly careful to avoid any political upsets related to the Lisbon Treaty, the Constitutional Treaty's replacement.
Some, such as leader of the socialist group in the European parliament Martin Schulz, have said that the health draft had the potential to stir as much controversy as the recent proposal to open up the market in services.
The subsequent debate about wage dumping and lower social standards in Europe are thought to have contributed to French voters turning down the EU constitution two years ago.