EU Health Care: Access to Medical Care

Abstract

This chapter examines developments regarding EU legislation in the area of health care, rather than public health. The chapter is a case study looking into the processes and the involvement of different EU institutional actors and policy mechanisms in the adoption of the Directive on patients’ rights in cross-border health care (‘the Directive’). First, the chapter introduces the Directive itself, and considers whether it expands access to health care across the EU. Second, it turns to the way the Directive was adopted, focusing particularly on the different roles of EU institutional actors and the discourse and controversies that developed in health care in the EU as a result of the legislative process. Last, the chapter addresses the expansion of EU health-care policy beyond the adoption of the new Directive that resulted from the increased discourse on health care and its impact for individual rights and access to health care.