Position paper - HCC - Consultation response on access to healthcare services

AmCham EU welcomes the preliminary opinion of the European Commission and the Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health regarding “access to health services in the European Union”. As outlined in the Commission communication on effective, accessible and resilient health systems (European Commission (2014), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on Effective, Accessible and Resilient Health Systems COM(2014) 215), accessibility is one of the key components contributing to strong health systems with effectiveness and resilience. However, the report addresses this important issue only superficially; it focuses on limitations and variations in terms of access to healthcare and provides only little context on the impact on EU health systems and the broader economy. By limiting itself to reference existing sources and without making concrete recommendations in this area, he report thus falls short to assess the impact of access to health on the broader economy, which was the main question to the expert panel.

The purpose of this paper is to share AmCham EU’s position on several issues highlighted in the opinion and to suggest constructive recommendations to strengthen it and ensure consistency with recent documents adopted at the EU level.

For more information, please contact Pierre Bouygues (pbo@amchameu.eu)