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Bringing society back into our understanding of European cross-border care
Author(s)
Date Issued
2021-10-04
Date Available
2022-01-06T15:45:35Z
Abstract
We are pleased to discuss our study on the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) and the redistributive effects of EHIC-related east-west patient and payment flows across regions and social classes. Our critics confirm our key finding: EHIC patient outflows from Eastern European (EE) to Western European result in a much higher relative burden for the budgets of EE states than outflows from WE to EEE do for WE countries. Starting from what they see as the true mission of social security coordination, however, they also tell us that we should never have studied the redistributive impact of EHIC patient and payment flows in the first place. In this response, we therefore explicate the differences between our empirical sociological perspective and our critics' normative legal approach. This is important, especially when social facts contradict normative legal assumptions as in our case. The EU laws that govern EHIC patient and payment flows are indeed based on the free movement provisions of the EU's internal market project, but our empirical findings show that its promise of "economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States' contained in Article 3.3. of the Treaty of the European Union is not realized in practice in the case of east-west EHIC payment flows and patient mobility.
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020
European Research Council
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
Sage
Journal
Journal of European Social Policy
Volume
31
Issue
4
Start Page
432
End Page
439
Copyright (Published Version)
2022 the Authors
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0958-9287
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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