Madrid (EFE).- The privatization of health services is growing throughout Spain, although the Community of Madrid and Catalonia remain in the lead as the autonomies with the most private health spending per inhabitant and year, and more money allocated to contracting with private centers.
This is stated in the ninth report of the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health (FADSP) on the privatization of communities, which denounces the “privatizing drift” of the health system and an example of this is that spending on concerts with private centers increased throughout the country by 8.98%, according to the latest data.
The report maintains Madrid as the region with the highest degree of privatization of its health services in all of Spain with a score of 32 points on a scale where the maximum is 33, followed by Catalonia (29), the Balearic Islands (27) and the Canary Islands (24). ).
And it is that a man from Madrid pays out 919.73 euros a year in private insurance and “out-of-pocket” health expenses, that is, consultations with specialists, unfunded medicines and co-payments, and in the case of a Catalan, the outlay is 808, 13 euro.
In the presentation of the report, the FADSP spokesman, Marciano Sánchez Bayle, explained that the privatization process worsened in the pandemic and was favored by cuts and the deterioration of public health.
He has also alluded to the Community of Madrid where this privatization process has been increasing since the transfer of powers and has worsened, in his opinion, with the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Catalonia, the community that spends the most on private concerts
The report reveals that Catalonia is the autonomous community that dedicates the highest percentage of health spending to contracting with private centers, 23.9%, followed by the Community of Madrid, 11.7%.
These autonomies are followed by the Balearic Islands, which allocates 8.6% of its health budget to private concerts; Canary Islands, 7.3; and the Basque Country, with 6.7%, all of them above the national average (6.6%).
Castilla y León is the autonomous region that dedicates the least health budget to contracting with private centers, 2.8%. It is followed by Aragon, with 3.7% and Andalusia, 3.9%.
According to the report, “an increase in public funding to the private sector produces an increase in avoidable mortality and this is due to the fact that it is linked to a parallel defunding of public management centers.”
To prepare the report, the FADSP has analyzed different variables such as the percentage of the population covered by civil servant mutuals, per capita spending on private insurance per inhabitant, out-of-pocket spending, the percentage allocated to agreements with private centers, the percentage of beds private hospitals and high-tech equipment and annual consultations with specialists, among others.
Cantabria, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, with less privatization
The report confirms that privatization is increasing in all the communities, although the intensity is greater or less depending on the territory.
Based on these variables, Cantabria is the Spanish community with the lowest degree of privatization, adding 13 points out of a maximum of 33 possible. This result places it 19 points ahead of the Community of Madrid.
For the FADSP, these “excessive differences” represent a lack of cohesion in the National Health System.
Cantabria repeats the lowest level of privatization in the health field as a community, the same as Extremadura, with 14 points, and Castilla-La Mancha, with 15.
With an intermediate degree of privatization are, in order from lowest to highest, the Basque Country, Murcia, La Rioja, Castilla y León, Asturias, Aragon, the Valencian Community, Galicia, Andalusia and Navarra.
According to the report, private health spending in Spain is 26.7% of total health spending, three points more than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which sets it at 23.7%. ; while out-of-pocket spending on non-reimbursable medicines, specialists and part of the prescription copayment is 19.6%, one and a half points more.
Obviously, says the FADSP report, this increase in private insurance is linked to greater inequality and exclusions since only people with more resources can access it.
Madrid residents spend the most on private health insurance
Within private health spending is the amount that is used to pay for insurance. To this, the people of Madrid dedicate 337 euros per head per year, ahead of the Balearic Islands (293), the Catalans (270) and the Basques, 196 euros per year per inhabitant.
In the case of the so-called “pocket money” for expenses that are not covered by public health, the list is led by La Rioja, with 659.95 euros, followed by Madrid (582.73), Catalonia (538.13) and Navarra ( 526.49).
Another aspect that the FADSP studies is the breakdown by community of the private hospital fields over the total and the percentage of high-tech equipment in private hospitals.
54.5% of hospital beds in Catalonia are private
In Spain, 26.73% of hospital beds are in private centers, although Catalonia is in the lead with 54.5%, followed by Navarra, with 40.57%.
The third position is for the Balearic Islands (36.71%), ahead of the Canary Islands (34.23%) and the Community of Madrid, with 32.21%.
At the opposite extreme are Castilla-La Mancha, with only 6.16% of private beds, and Extremadura, 9.51%.
Regarding high technology, 34.41% of the equipment is in private centers and it is the Balearic Islands that leads this ranking with 52.85%, very close to Navarra, 51.61%.
The report also looks at GP consultations in the private sector. They were attended by 27.2% of the Balearic Islands, 24.3% of the Catalans and 23% of the people of Madrid.