Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-04-Speech-4-027"
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"en.20031204.2.4-027"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by thanking you very much for the cooperation we have enjoyed concerning the European Health Insurance Card, because what you say is correct, Commissioner. It is a real success story, as a result of which, with fairly few changes and a quite modest reform, we shall obtain very major benefits indeed for the individual citizen. I am pleased, moreover, that Parliament has supported our attaching importance to finishing the job quickly so that people might have the card in their hands by 1 July 2004. I believe it will have very great symbolic value indeed.
It has not been as simple as all that, for it was as recently as last Friday that the Council agreed upon the wording now before us. I must thank my colleagues in the form of the shadow rapporteurs from the other parties for having been so flexible and trusting in the work on this card and for having supported us in finding a solution as early as today, when I also hope we can lay the foundation for reaching an agreement at first reading and so having the proposal implemented in a mere six months.
What we are adopting today means that a number of the forms we have at present are to be replaced by a card. Initially, a simple form, called E111, is to be replaced. Subsequently, a number of other forms will follow, normally to be completed when people move from one country to another or need health insurance – paid for by their country of origin – when temporarily resident abroad. It will simplify matters and make things easier for people, including those who are travelling, in a host of practical ways. It is, then, not only students and retired people temporarily resident, or working in, another country, but also people travelling who will no doubt make more use of the new Health Insurance Card, for they will no longer have to contact the social authorities but will have the card and be able to go directly to the doctor’s.
If, however, we are to be able to devise a card for all, everyone needs to be given the same rights, and this has meant some citizens being given more rights. In future, everyone will be entitled to all necessary medical treatment whereas, up until now, some people were only entitled to emergency medical treatment. In future, it will be the same for everyone, and this means, for example, that people suffering from chronic diseases, such as kidney diseases, will in future be able to come to an agreement with a hospital in the country to which they are travelling and be sure of being able to obtain dialysis. This proposal will therefore improve and simplify matters for them.
The tighter rules for the Health Insurance Card will be laid down by an administrative committee in which the individual Member States will be represented. How the rules will look and what list of illnesses it will be permitted, in purely practical terms, to obtain treatment for will be laid down by representatives from the Member States. What we are establishing here is a situation in which everyone is given the same rights and in which it is possible to go directly to the doctor without, therefore, having to do a tour of the social authorities.
It is also worth mentioning that it will become easier to reimburse expenditure. This can be made simpler and faster. At present, it can take a long time before expenses are reimbursed. This will become simpler. It will become simpler for the individual, but it will also in fact become simpler for the doctors and health staff, as well as becoming easier for the authorities. The situation is therefore really one in which everyone can be pleased and elated about what is happening, because we shall, in actual fact, all benefit from it.
Finally, I wish to say how very important it is to state that what we are preparing in this case is an insurance card and not a card providing health information in the general sense of the term. The only information to be carried on the card will be the person’s name and insurance details, but not health information. In the context of the e-Europe programme, work is being done on a card that will contain health information, but that is not what we are talking about today. We do not therefore have data protection problems, because the data that is to be exchanged by means of this Health Insurance Card is exclusively the same data we exchange by means of forms. It is a small reform but one that, I believe, will be very effective in practice."@en1
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