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Journal of European Social Policy
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Health care across borders

Austria and its new EU neighbours

August Österle

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria, august.oesterle{at}wu-wien.ac.at

In the European Union, a growing body of regulations and decisions attempt to facilitate cross-border health treatments. These focus on coordinating social protection for those migrating or travelling within Europe, and increasingly those travelling specifically for health treatments abroad. With EU enlargement, the framework became effective for another ten countries. This article discusses access to health care in neighbouring regions of `old' and `new' EU member states: Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Even if cross-border care is not a new phenomenon in the region, EU enlargement implies greater opportunities and increased requirements and incentives for coordination, cooperation and competition. The article concludes that this also involves prospects for improved access in the border region. But, outside pre-arranged institutional health care settings, taking advantage of these prospects is often determined by and differentiated along the lines of access to information and individual ability to pay, and it involves certain quality risks.

Key Words: Central Europe • cross-border health care • EU enlargement • health care access

Journal of European Social Policy, Vol. 17, No. 2, 112-124 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0958928707075195
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