Commission Recommendation of  8 December 2005  on the treatment in the Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices of certain issues concerning health care reforms within the framework of Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 and specific implementing measures relating hereto   (Text with EEA relevance)
Date: 2005-12-08
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Netherlands, consumer price, harmonisation of prices, health care, health expenditure, health insurance, price index

L 324/94

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

10.12.2005

COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION

of 8 December 2005

on the treatment in the Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices of certain issues concerning health
care reforms within the framework of Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 and specific
implementing measures relating hereto

(Text with EEA relevance)

(2005/881/EC)

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty
Community, and in particular Article 211 thereof,

establishing the European

Whereas:

(1)

(2)

Health care insurance in the Netherlands will be reformed
from January 2006. A new compulsory basic social
insurance scheme will cover a large part of health care
for the total population, and it is expected that about
the total population will be moved from
37,5 % of
insurance
private insurance schemes to the new social
scheme (thereafter referred to as ‘the reform’).

The reform introduces a fundamental change in the orga-
the health care
nisation and institutional structure of
system.
in the Harmonised Indices of
Consumer Prices (HICPs) must be appropriate, consistent
with the HICP legal
framework and in particular the
following Regulations:

treatment

Its

— Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 of 23 October
1995 concerning harmonized indices of consumer
prices (1) and in particular Articles 4, 5(3), 8(3), 9
and 12 thereof,

— Commission Regulation (EC) No 1749/96 of 9
September 1996 on initial
implementing measures
for Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 concerning
harmonized indices of consumer prices (2), Articles 2,
4 and Annex Ia, in particular footnotes 16 and 17
thereof,

— Commission Regulation (EC) No 2454/97 of 10
December 1997 laying down detailed rules for the
implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No
2494/95 as
the
quality of HICP weightings (3),

regards minimum standards

for

(1) OJ L 257, 27.10.1995, p. 1. Regulation as amended by Regulation
(EC) No 1882/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council
(OJ L 284, 31.10.2003, p. 1).

(2) OJ L 229, 10.9.1996, p. 3. Regulation as last amended by Regu-

lations (EC) No 1708/2005 (OJ L 274, 20.10.2005, p. 9).

(3) OJ L 340, 11.12.1997, p. 24.

— Commission Regulation (EC) No 1617/1999 of
23 July 1999 laying down detailed rules for the
implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No
the
2494/95 as
treatment of insurance in the Harmonised Index of
Consumer Prices and modifying Commission Regu-
lation (EC) No 2214/96 (4), Articles 2 and 3 thereof,

regards minimum standards

for

— Council Regulation (EC) No 2166/1999 of 8 October
1999 laying down detailed rules for the implemen-
tation of Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 as regards
minimum standards for the treatment of products
in the health,
education and social protection
sectors
in the Harmonised Index of Consumer
Prices (5), Article 4 thereof,

and result in HICPs that are comparable, reliable and
relevant.

insurance. Taking into account

The HICP legal framework does not handle explicitly and
specifically the case of this reform, which involves funda-
mental changes in the eligibility and access rules for
the potential
social
impact on the HICP, and the consequent uncertainty
for users,
the Commission considers it necessary to
issue a recommendation, regarding the treatment of the
reform in the HICP to clarify the existing HICP Regu-
lations.

indicate that

framework requires that

For measuring changes in consumer prices, the HICP
legal
the HICP should take
account of changes from zero prices to positive prices
and vice versa. A reading of this requirement in isolation
the HICP should record a very
might
in inflation as a result of this reform.
substantial fall
However, in the context of this reform, the Commission
(Eurostat) considers that such a treatment would show an
unwarranted price change as a consequence of pricing
transactions using different valuation concepts.

(3)

(4)

(5)

The valuation of health care expenditure in the HICP
(COICOP/HICP 06) (6)
is conditioned on the treatment
of health insurance (COICOP/HICP 12.5.3).

(4) OJ L 192, 24.7.1999, p. 9.
(5) OJ L 266, 14.10.1999, p. 1.
(6) Classification of individual consumption by purpose adapted to the

needs of the HICPs (COICOP/HICP).

10.12.2005

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 324/95

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

insurance does not fall within Household Final
Social
Monetary Consumption Expenditure
either
before or after the reform. The reform results in a
significant
reduction in the population covered by
private insurance schemes.

(HFMCE)

The per capita consumption volumes for health care
remain in principle unchanged from those in the base
or reference period, but the composition of the consumer
population and the valuation concept both change in the
periods being compared as a result of new eligibility and
access rules for the health insurance schemes.

The impact on the HICP, as from the January in which
such a reform takes effect, of consumers moving to the
new social health insurance scheme, should thereby be
approximately neutral for the HICP.

The Commission considers that such treatment does not
call
into question the treatment of earlier examples of
changes from zero prices to positive prices and vice
versa (e.g. TV licence abolition of 2000 and health
insurance reform of 2004 in the Netherlands, or the
health care reform of 2004 in Germany).

(10)

The Commission (Eurostat) has taken into consideration
the views of key HICP users and national HICP experts
with regard to the above,

HEREBY RECOMMENDS:

1. Changes in consumer prices should not be measured for the
HICP simply as a result of changes in the eligibility and
access rules for social health insurance. Rather the HICP
should capture changes in the prices within one and the
same scheme and price changes resulting from changes in

the rules determining prices within one and the same
scheme.

2. Both prices and weights for health insurance and health care
expenditure should be mutually coherent, and that must be
the case across time.

3. In order that the HICP be accurate and relevant, reforms
presenting the characteristics described above, should be
accounted for by means of adjusting the weights and
chaining the price indices for

(a) health insurance, or within health insurance between the
preceding December and the January in which a reform
takes effect;

(b) health care expenditure, or within health care expen-
diture between the preceding December
and the
January in which a reform takes effect. This treatment
is
thereby consistent with the treatment of health
insurance.

4. This Recommendation should be taken into account by the
Authorities compiling HICPs taking into consideration the
specific circumstances of the individual reforms.

5. This Recommendation is addressed to the Member States.

Done at Brussels, 8 December 2005.

For the Commission

Joaquín ALMUNIA
Member of the Commission