EU to introduce health insurance card for all

The European Union is planning to introduce a Europe-wide health insurance card to all citizens later this year.

The card is designed to make travel among the 25 states of the European Union far simpler.

It will be in the format of a credit card and will contain basic health information, like allergies, blood type and medical history and will eventually be backed up by an electronic system, creating a Europe-wide database of citizens' health.

The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said today the card would have no initial benefits for Irish people other than meaning they "avoid a lot of filling in forms". It will initially replace the E111 and subsequently other forms like the E112 and E128. These are required to apply for medical benefits in another EU state.

A million cards for Irish people have been ordered, and will probably be issued in June, Mr Martin said.

He said the information contained would be quite basic to begin with, as there were a number of legal issues about the right to privacy and medical confidentiality to be considered.

However, Mr Martin predicted that within the next few decades, all EU citizens would have ID cards detailing all types of biometric and medical details about them.

The card is not intended to prevent the so-called health tourism that is causing major problems for the British health service. This, Mr Martin said, "was a different issue altogether", which did not affect Ireland.