Study Findings on European Social Policy Are Outlined in Reports from Dublin City University (Bringing Eu Citizens Together or Pulling Them Apart? the European Health Insurance Card, East-west Mobility and the Failed Promise of European Social …): Global Views – European Social Policy

2022 SEP 26 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on Global Views - European Social Policy is now available. According to news reporting originating in Dublin, Ireland, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Although the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) was meant to bring Europeans together, this study shows that it is amplifying social inequalities across regions and classes. First, we evaluate the effects of east-west EHIC mobility, and of Eastern Europeans’ participation in it, on the practice of EU social citizenship rights to access cross-border care along spatial (east-west) and social class divides.”

Financial supporters for this research include European Research Council (ERC), School of Business, University College Dublin.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Dublin City University, “We then assess the impact of these mobilities on healthcare resources in Western and Eastern Europe. Our findings show that the EHIC reinforces rather than reduces the spatially and socially uneven access to social citizenship rights to cross-border care. Moreover, EHIC patient outflows from Eastern to Western Europe result in a much higher relative financial burden for the budgets of Eastern European states than outflows from Western to Eastern Europe do for Western European countries. As a result, east-west EHIC mobility is reproducing rather than reversing healthcare inequalities between the two regions.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Hence, the EHIC does not fulfil its promise of European social integration - not, however, because it creates a burden on Western European welfare states as often argued in Eurosceptic tabloids, but because it increases social inequalities both inside and between richer and poorer EU member states.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Bringing Eu Citizens Together or Pulling Them Apart? the European Health Insurance Card, East-west Mobility and the Failed Promise of European Social Integration. Journal of European Social Policy, 2021;31(4):409-423. Journal of European Social Policy can be contacted at: Sage Publications Ltd, 1 Olivers Yard, 55 City Road, London EC1Y 1SP, England. (Sage Publications - http://www.sagepub.com/; Journal of European Social Policy - esp.sagepub.com)

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Sabina Stan, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland. Additional authors for this research include Susan Gannon and Roland Erne.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928720974188. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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