BIOETYKA / WPROWADZENIE

BIOETYKA / WPROWADZENIE - Przeglądy aktów prawnych

The future of health care and care for the elderly: guaranteeing accessibility, quality and financial viability – Komunikat Komisji UE 2001

Three long-term objectives: accessibility, quality, viability

1 Accessibility

For Europeans, access to health care is a fundamental right and an essential element of human dignity; it must therefore be guaranteed for all. The European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights states that "everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical treatment" [12] and that "the Union recognises and respects the entitlement to social security benefits and social services providing protection in cases such as maternity, illness, industrial accident, dependency or old age". [13]

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2 Quality

Good quality health care is an essential requirement for all Europeans. It is a major public health objective.

Moreover, the significant share of the cost of care which comes from public funding gives this quality requirement a second dimension, namely how to achieve an optimum balance (which is acceptable without jeopardising the public health objective) between the health benefits and the cost of medication and treatment. The development of information resources accessible to the public, the growing impact of the internal market and increased mobility, give this quality issue a cross-border dimension hitherto unknown.

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3 Financial viability

A certain level of financing is required to ensure the availability of high-quality health care that keeps pace with scientific and technical progress and is accessible to the population at large.

The pressures on the unit costs of care and on the demand for health care make themselves felt irrespective of the way in which health care systems are organised, but the effect they have depends on the nature of the systems in question. In the case of health care systems that take the form of "national health services", it is theoretically easier to control expenditure (which is naturally budget expenditure) but the pressure of demand results in longer waiting lists [19] which can show that the supply of health care is inadequate. When it comes to insurance-based systems, where the health care providers are often independent of the "financing entity", a rise in demand and/or costs leads to an increase in expenditure, which can become unsustainable in the long term for public financing. All that the authorities can do in such a situation is to increase tax revenue or take steps to control expenditure, which are often opposed by the professions concerned and, above all, involve the problem of deciding which needs should be met.

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