Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-357"
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"en.20050607.31.2-357"2
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".
Mr President, thank you. Health is of course very important to everyone and is essential to our quality of life. This excellent report by Mr Bowis – and I have to say that the original report, that is to say the one before it was approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, was actually far better than what is before us now – is in any case a step in the right direction in promoting public health.
The report contains a lot of sensible ideas, and I dare say that it is perhaps left up to others, including myself, to say the injudicious things, because the language in the report could have been more forceful, of course. The version after it passed the Committee contains many ‘would it not be nice if’ and ‘this and that would need to be promoted’ and the conclusion is yet again that the responsibility for health and health care really lies with the Member States. I already knew that. That is how it is provided for in the Treaty, but the question is, of course, whether that is tenable in the long term. How do we really help sick people, for example in the case of long waiting lists in my own country or the lack of specialist knowledge?
I should therefore like to seize the opportunity of arguing in favour of the European Union adopting a bigger role in health and health care. If somebody is ill, they should be given the possibility of receiving medical care abroad. Keeping the borders closed for medical care for all kinds of administrative, procedural or financial reasons is ultimately not in the interest of the consumer, and that is what we are here for, after all. The right to see a doctor abroad has already been recognised by the Court of Justice, and, as Mr Bowis rightly suggests, why not enshrine it in European legislation?
We live in a modern society peopled by well-educated, mobile and responsible citizens, and they should be able to decide where they want to be treated and how. Opening up borders for patients also encourages health care in our own countries to achieve better quality, cutting waiting lists and making specialist knowledge available.
Having said that, I should like to underline the EU’s positive role in health care, and the presence of the Commission at this ungodly hour is appreciated all the more. This health care in the European Union is an exception to the rule that the European Union is often associated with the negative image of bureaucracy and drafting senseless and unnecessary rules. We do good work here, and it goes without saying that we will be voting for Mr Bowis’ report with great enthusiasm."@en1
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