Mastodawn

@EUCommission Could you perhaps remind yourselves (through the policies you promote in the Member States) that privatising public healthcare turns the right to healthcare into a perverse by-product designed to enrich a select few, which has nothing to do with the ‘free market’ and even less to do with health?

Thank you!!!

@Ulmo @EUCommission How does the Commission "promote" health policy in the member statelets?

@Veza85UE @EUCommission Not health policies. But how resources for those policies are managed. It’s different, but it has a huge impact.

@Ulmo @EUCommission What resources do you think Ayuso would use for healthcare if only the impact of the European Commission's... guidelines (¿?) would let her?

@Veza85UE @EUCommission Put simply, you can either invest tax revenue in public spending or divert those funds to pay private companies to run both private and public hospitals, thereby reducing resources for the public health service (fewer staff, fewer beds). It comes down to political will and decision-making. And it is a matter of legislation and economic policy.

The decline in public services in general, and in healthcare in particular, has been exacerbated by such diversions of funds across Europe since the pandemic. And this is driven by EU-backed policies.

As for how these publicly funded companies operate through care ratios or the reuse of medical equipment, it’s best not to even mention it. Their aim is profit and the highest possible profit margin. Let us remember that a public service seeks to meet a community need or to ensure a right is upheld. Not to make a profit.

When you break your arm or have an accident and lose consciousness, you’re not thinking about who will provide you with the best service on the market. You want to be treated. Healthcare is the very opposite of what market competition is supposed to improve.

So the intention is not to improve the service, but to siphon off public resources to enrich certain players. It is a political and ideological decision driven by Brussels. This isn’t a recent development; it has been going on since 2008. The pandemic has exacerbated the situation in the area of public health.

@Ulmo @EUCommission I think we're in agreement on a lot here, probably north of 90% (there's emergency healthcare and there's health-nice-to-haves where market competition can and probably has improved outcomes, but I genuinely defer to your expertise). I mentioned Ayuso because at the core of my disagreement is this: "driven by Brussels". Who is "Brussels", particularly for health, foreign policy, taxation, defence, etc.?

@Veza85UE @EUCommission Brussels is in charge of the EU’s economic and monetary policy. And that is HUGE.

I can see you’re focusing on the wrong policies. You don’t need to suggest, or even ‘hint’, at what defence or health policies (over which it has no jurisdiction) should be pursued when you’re setting the guidelines on how resources should be used, or the economic and budgetary guidelines, or how those policies should be managed within a general framework and how they are funded.

Veza85UE

@Ulmo @EUCommission Monetary (and there are caveats there too, on top of PL et al being out) is Frankfurt. On everything else, the guidelines on how resources should be used are written by lower level experts and advisors as they are in every administration anywhere, but the guidelines are decided by the member states governments without whom NOTHING moves in the EU. The ultimate decision maker is in the hummus room of the European Council. "Brussels"=member states, so... a disfrutar lo votado.

@Veza85UE @EUCommission Are you joking? Just because the European Central Bank is based in Frankfurt doesn’t make it a separate, alien entity. Are you telling me that the division of powers between the various European institutions is completely compartmentalised?

That the decisions taken in Brussels, Strasbourg or wherever the Council of Europe meets are made without any connection or planning whatsoever?

You must be joking. Right?

@Ulmo @EUCommission The Council of Europe is not an EU institution. The European Council = our heads of state and government, the executive decider of EVERYTHING in the European Union. They are "Brussels", no joke. That's the point, not that the decisions of our national governments are not planned. Read again: our governments are the EU, they are "Brussels", they make these guidelines, they make these decisions, there is no EU or Brussels as an external force alien to them.

@Veza85UE @EUCommission Of course. The EU is an amorphous entity that hovers over Europe without having the slightest influence on the policies of its member states.

Much less on monetary policy (over which member states have no say whatsoever) or, of course, in any way on economic policy.

Sure, of course. Save that story for someone else. You’ll excuse me for withdrawing from this nonsense. Read Article 13 of the TEU and perhaps I might deign to continue.