Editorial_lay:Layout 1 - BDIZ EDI

Grand Coalition renewed in Austria:
Aiming to heal the sick healthcare funds
A Grand Coalition is once again ruling Austria. Its
new Minister of Health is Alois Stöger of the Social
Democratic Party. Following the failed healthcare
reform and the physicians’ strikes last summer,
Walter Dorner, president of the Austrian Medical
Association, now hopes for a more cooperative effort.
In a press release, Dorner called the new healthcare
minister a pragmatist and a sufficiently experienced
and competent person. Stöger is 48 years old, a toolmaker
and lathe operator by training, a union functionary
and, since mid-2005, a representative of the
Upper Austrian Regional Healthcare Fund with more
than a million policyholders. “My career has been
dominated by education”, Stöger said about himself.
Among other things, he completed a course of distance
learning in the field of social practice. During
the coalition negotiations, the Social Democrats and
the Austrian People’s Party had agreed, among other
things, to embark on rehabilitating the healthcare
funds, which have run up a deficit of more than
€ 1.2 billion.
Source: Der Standard
Ban on outside ownership:
EU Commission sues France
The EU Commission has sued France before the European
Court of Justice for passing another ban on outside
ownership for pharmacists and physicians: In
France, biomedical laboratories must be operated by
so-called clinical biologists, who are either pharmacists
or physicians. Approximately 800 pharmacists
carry this professional designation. No clinical biologists
can own shares in more than two laboratories,
while corporations may own at most a 25 percent
share in each laboratory. According to the Directorate
General for the Internal Market, these limitations are
incompatible with the freedom of establishment. An
international corporation had complained to the EU
Commission, who in turn instigated infringement procedures
against France in April 2006. On receiving the
reply by the French government, the second admonitory
letter to France was sent out as early as December
2006, with a reply coming in February 2007. Following
negotiations with the EU Commission, the
French government promised to change the offending
provisions by early 2009. Following a number
of hearings, a bill was drafted and submitted to
the French Parliament, whose members, however,
refused to approve it, obviously trying to avoid having
corporations enter the healthcare sector.
Source: Various media/Apotheke Adhoc
Barack Obama and healthcare:
Health insurance for all?
EDI
EDI News
US President Barack Obama is planning on allowing the
health protection scheme for socially disadvantaged
children take effect. But not only that – he wants affordable
health insurance for all. In 1993, Hillary Clinton,
then head of a healthcare task force, had failed to gain
Congress approval for a radical reform of the health
care system, against resistance of the Republican Party
and the corporate health insurers who make large profits
with expensive private health insurance. So the status
quo remained in place, with the result that 46 million
Americans are not covered by health insurance.
Companies that succumb to the recession leave workers
behind who have not only lost their job but also their
access to health care. For them, any illness is a major
step in the direction of personal bankruptcy. The protection
by the state-run programs Medicare and Medicaid,
created in the 1960s by President Lyndon B. Johnson,
afford only rudimentary protection as they apply only
to pensioners, the disabled and the poorest of the poor.
They do not offer any support to the majority of the
population. Obama wants to remedy the deficiencies of
Johnson’s social legislation while at the same time
learning from Clinton’s mistake. Clinton had tried to
implement mandatory health insurance, while Obama
supports voluntary participation. Instead of polarizing,
Obama wants to forge alliances. He proposes a middle
road between a completely state-run and a completely
privatized healthcare system, expanding the scope of
the public programs and allowing them to compete
with the offerings of the private sector. At the same
time, it is planned to force even smaller employers to
offer health insurance to their employees. The independent
Tax Policy Center has estimated that Obama’s
plan will reduce the number of uninsured Americans by
30 million within ten years at a cost of $1.6 billion.
Experts are critical as to whether this proposal has any
chances of being realized amid the most serious economic
crisis in decades.
Source: Various media
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