Health
As member states increasingly face common concerns in healthcare (such as demographic ageing), the application of the OMC has been discussed. In March 2004 the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the Commission to present a proposal for the use of the OMC in health and long term care. The April 2004 Communication by the Commission recommended to apply the OMC to the development and modernization of health care provision and funding. As potential advantages the Commission pointed to:
- greater consistency with existing social protection mechanism
- closer coordination with other political processes such as the EES (in particular regard to the ageing workforce), As a result the issues of health should better reflect the Lisbon strategy
- involving the many actors in the sectors, particularly the social partners, the health care profession and patient representatives
Further steps have been taken to start the introduction of the OMC.
Read more about this topic: Open Method Of Coordination
Famous quotes containing the word health:
“All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The filth and noise of the crowded streets soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Men’s hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)