At the European Council later this month (March 23 and 24) the EU leaders will discuss Europe’s social model. They want to take steps towards further integration of the dysfunctional European welfare states. Brussels is infatuated with the Scandinavian model [this one], and in particular with Denmark’s.

But Denmark is not the way to go – and to look at Scandinavia is only to look at how not to do things when it comes to the welfare state. Denmark has been successful despite its high tax rates and huge welfare state – but that is because much of the economy is deregulated, and it is fairly easy to start a business and make money. The problem is that so many businesses just do not survive.

One sector of the Danish model is especially horrific: the healthcare sector. This follows the good old soviet style model. Of course there are reforms, and private practitioners are private – although their sole customer is the government.

Scandinavian models [these ones] better not get sick. Danish hospitals are primarily public – and it is difficult (if not impossible) to know where to go if you want quality treatment. So even though Danish patients have the right to choose between hospitals, information on where to go if you want the best surgery or heart transplant is scarce. And doctors are not always happy to help patients switch to a different hospital.

The heart of the problem is this: Danish (as most other European patients) have been disenfranchised. They have no say, they are clients, rather than customers, and hence they are treated as such. Service towards the patient is something that individual doctors and nurses give because they have a strong sense professionalism, it is not a part of the system.

So where should EU leaders look to if they want to be inspired with regard to a new social model for Europe? They should look West, to the Celtic tiger. And regarding healthcare they could look even more West, to the US where a few recent developments look promising for US healthcare consumers. The basic concept of the US innovations can be applied beyond healthcare.

One of the developments are the recent changes made by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its regulatory approach to drug evaluation – changes that European politicians should study if they want to reach the targets set in the Lisbon Agenda. The reason behind the FDA changes is to secure more efficiently expedite drug approvals. On January 12, the FDA announced that, henceforth it would allow new chemical entities to be tested on small groups of patients. These new chemicals entities are of course the same as potentially new drugs, and the dosage in these tests will be very low. However, this still allows for a quicker first step in the process of testing drugs safely on humans, because until now it was required that early-stage trials were based on large-scale tests, which of course means large-scale costs.

By allowing for lower doses in initial tests the FDA effectively gives manufacturers a head start on figuring out which new drugs have potential and which new chemical entities are only that – random chemical entities, which would not survive more extensive clinical trials and would not contribute to our health.

Naturally the US left wing attacked this move, arguing that it would increase the risk of dangerous drugs entering the market. But this is wrong because the more research scientists can make and the more informed they are the quicker they can invent new drugs – to the benefit of mankind. The new rule will essentially help “more researchers conduct earlier, more informed studies of promising treatments so patients have more rapid access to safer and more effective drugs,” as the FDA said.

This new approach will – even if not copied in Europe – help the European Health Care Consumer because effective drugs cut medical costs by reducing surgery and hospitalizations for inadequately treated illnesses. But when beneficial new drugs are rejected, or unduly delayed, patients suffer illness and death. All drugs have risks, however, and risk-benefit discussions should be carried out between doctors and their patients. Europe, too, should allow for similar testing – thereby securing even more beneficial new drugs, and saving European tax payers a bundle.

Also recently US President George Bush argued that the United States needs to reform its healthcare system, moving away from the current system, in which employers and insurance companies are the most involved in paying healthcare bills, making individuals less involved in the cost of the procedures they get.

President Bush proposed a healthcare system in which patients pay more directly for their care, because that will turn them into comparison shoppers whose interest in a good deal will drive costs down. During a panel discussion on his health care initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services the president said:

“When somebody else pays the bills, rarely do you ask the price or ask the cost of something. The problem with that is that there's no kind of market force, there's no consumer advocacy for reasonable prices when somebody else pays the bills. One of the reasons why we're having inflation in health care is because there is no sense of market.”

Another big theme is Health Savings Accounts. The president wants to encourage more people to open health savings accounts by increasing the tax advantages. People who open such accounts also must buy a high deductible insurance policy for catastrophic expenses that requires an individual to pay for at least the first $1,050 in expenses and families for the first $2,100. Bush wants to let people put enough money in their health savings accounts to cover all their health insurance costs, not just the deductibles as allowed now. This would allow them to set aside more money tax-free.

Bush also campaigned for medical records to be kept electronically, to cut down on inefficiency and cost, and for more information to be made available about the price and quality of medical procedures. All these things, he said, would encourage a “consumer-based health care system.”

“When you go buy a car you're able to shop and compare,” he said. “And yet in healthcare that’s just not happening in America today.” Neither is it in Europe – but looking to Bush’s proposal would be a very good idea for the European leaders later this month.