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.

@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.

Rien 5h ago

@Veza85UE @Ulmo @EUCommission we will have to repeat this message over and over again: our own national governments are the executive power of the EU. Do not let them hide behind a fake story about 'what the EU is doing to them'.. they are cowardly stepping away from their own decisions (especially when there is some not so popular element in it, otherwise of course everything is their accomplishment).

Thanks @Veza85UE for your patience in calling them out!!

Ulmo

@rien @Veza85UE @EUCommission Oh god, passing the buck to each other (the EU to the member states and these to the EU) while anyone who has read the EU treaty knows perfectly well that there are delegated powers where members cannot do even half.

The EU is an independent legal entity and acts on certain issues with broad powers. So much so that there is jurisprudence that has to be complied with and a national judge has to enforce EU law when it clashes with national law and according to the treaties he has preference. How the guidelines are implemented in the EU Member States does not get involved, obviously (please, the governments are the ones that know best and deal with the natives).

Then there are the governments that blame changes on the EU, when it has no powers.

Can someone then explain to me how the EU forced a Member State to reform its constitution, without a referendum and urgently?

Greece was a separate case that was literally dismantled in parts and sold to the highest bidder in those wonderful years of austericide (China especially). It really is healthy curiosity.

We EU citizens are the ones who are losing patience.

Rien 3h ago

@Ulmo @Veza85UE @EUCommission My question is who delegated powers to the EU? It always were member states governments. We as a collective are the EU. For a lot of topics member States can still veto almost anything - look at wat Orban is capable of all these years.

As an EU citizen I want honest information from my politicians in stead of a blame game.

Ulmo 3h ago

@rien @Veza85UE @EUCommission That’s basic. The treaty members.

We’re not disputing that. We’re talking about how the EU—which was created by the treaties—is pressuring its member states to privatize the public healthcare sector through the Commission and economic governance mechanisms such as the European Semester.