[cleansy]

I sort of agree with some of the commenters here - the system works as intended. If you move to any country without a job first you will have a hard time. Health insurance shouldn't be part of a free 'welcome package' to whoever just feels like dropping by.

However, I think it would be hugely beneficial when all (goverment sanctioned) EU health insurances would be valid in all EU countries. If you get a private insurance in Germany you usually have this already covered. But not with the state insurances, for whatever reason.

[bjornsing]

> If you move to any country without a job first you will have a hard time. Health insurance shouldn't be part of a free 'welcome package' to whoever just feels like dropping by.

I can understand this reasoning in the general case, but I'm not sure I agree when the two countries are Italy and Germany. Both Italy and Germany are part of the European Union, and one of the chief political ambitions of this union is the free movement of people within the union. To me it feels a bit weird to say this ambition applies only to the healthy and highly productive. I can certainly see how this can be perceived as a form of "second class citizenship".

But yea, I guess your stance here depends a lot on your politics. Personally I have no problem with people coming to Sweden and using the generous government funded health care system, but I have been thinking about the reverse problem a bit lately: If I as a Swedish citizen move abroad (even outside the EU) I have "free health insurance for life", in the sense that if I get seriously ill I can always get on a plane back to Sweden and receive some of the highest quality care on earth free of charge. I would not need to pay a dime in taxes for this. At this moment we've extended this free insurance to about 660 000 people (the equivalent of 1/15 of the Swedish population), and I bet that's mostly people who are relatively very well off.

I guess when you mix peoples freedom of movement with money it gets complicated real fast...

[Xylakant]

Actually, you get this. Critical services are provided to all patients, regardless of nationality. All EU health insurances are accepted for urgent treatments. There's some time limit after which you'll need to register and get German insurance, but well, the way the system is set up (different payments and different paid-for treatments in the various countries), this is the only way things can currently work. It would be better if it was all unified across the EU, but that will take some time.