Brussels, 01/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - After many a long month of debate at Commission departments and between EU commissioners, the European Commission should finally be in a position to adopt a communication and draft directive on Wednesday 2 July 2008 setting the legal framework for the exercise of citizens' rights to cross-border healthcare within the European Union.
Postponed several times since the second half of 2007 and then withdrawn from the agenda in December 2007, the draft directive has been reworked and reworded and been the subject of many corrections, none of which fundamentally change its real impact. It is generally estimated that the number of citizens prepared to seek healthcare far from home is very small, with the exception of people living in border areas, very small member states, those suffering from rare diseases and healthcare in areas visited by many tourists. Across the whole of the EU, cross-border healthcare amounts to less than €10 billion a year (compared with healthcare spending in France of €156.6 billion in 2006, for example). Even imagining a huge rise in demand for cross-border healthcare, which is highly unlikely, the sums involved would not challenge the financial health of national healthcare systems. Some small countries might be more affected than others, however.
The draft directive does introduce many changes, doing little more than transposing European Court of Justice rulings in this domain and completing EU Regulation 1408/71. In theory, patients can always get refunded in another member state from their own for the amount that would be refunded in their member state of origin. For hospital care, the country of origin will be able to continue to require prior authorisation. In all cases, the member states of origin can continue to apply conditions like consultation with a general practitioner beforehand.
The draft directive foresees the creation of European networks of reference centres to bring together the generally multi-disciplinary equipment and expertise needed to treat patients with certain diseases, like some forms of cancer, diseases of the central nervous system and rare diseases. (O.J.)