It took me a full day to decide whether or not the above headline worked for me at all. Undeniably, the European Commission, which has broad power over economic policy for most of Europe, is supporting transnational regulation for healthcare in the 27-member European Union (EU). (News link)

Almost immediately upon the announcement of the proposal, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was freaking out.

“Millions of patients will be able to travel abroad for free medical treatment within three years under European plans,” was the breathless lead in The Telegraph, which went on to say:

The new rules will allow patients to buy hospital, outpatient or dental treatment in any EU country and send the bill to the National Health Service.

Experts predicted that the rules could spark an exodus of patients from the NHS due to concerns about long waiting times and hospital superbugs.

Once adopted the new laws will give patients the right to claim back the cost of any medical procedure up to the amount it would have cost in their home country.

Further down in the article, the NHS had its say:

“… Health Secretary Alan Johnson is fighting for the right to make patients obtain NHS permission in advance for major operations.

The health department said: ‘We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the NHS retains the ability to decide what care it will fund.’

The proposal represents a potential boon to medical travel and tourism businesses and facilities in Eastern Europe especially, along with perhaps Portugal, Spain and those Western European countries that have lower costs than Great Britain — along with no waiting lists, for which the NHS is notorious. The reaction from India was also immediate — the EU proposal was called a “major setback” to Indian medical tourism, which has been courting NHS outsourcing for years now.

Can the NHS and Britain buck the Commission? Perhaps. The proposal isn’t set in stone. But there is a certain aura of inevitability about medical tourism in Europe …

The EU began working on clarifying the rules on the right to move around Europe for health care partly in response to a European legal ruling in 2006 which backed the case of 75-year old Briton Yvonne Watts, who paid £3,900 for a hip replacement in France because she was not prepared to wait a year for an operation in the UK. The NHS refused to reimburse her but the EU judges said she was entitled to shop around in the EU because of the “undue delay” in her treatment prospects in Britain. (Source)

In the United States, the equivalent would be for the government to authorize Medicare/Medicaid payments for out-of-country medical facilities. Don’t hold your breath — but at the same time, don’t think that it isn’t being discussed, at high levels, within the U.S.