Healthcare does not need to spend more, but to spend everyone's money better

By Francisco Cabrera The Spanish Healthcare System has been considered one of the best in the world. A system built with the effort and contribution of several generations of men and women. In recent years, there have been ...

June 8 2012 (14:25 WEST)
By Francisco Cabrera
The Spanish Healthcare System has been considered one of the best in the world. A system built with the effort and contribution of several generations of men and women. In recent years, there have been ...

The Spanish Healthcare System has been considered one of the best in the world. A system built with the effort and contribution of several generations of men and women. In recent years, there have been significant imbalances, mismatches, lack of control in spending, lack of adaptive reforms to the reality of the EU, inequality in care and lack of leadership and a clear health policy, placing the so-called Welfare State on the brink of bankruptcy.

With a debt of 16,000 million euros in 12,110,000 unpaid invoices, the economic base of our Healthcare has been recklessly touched. If in 1996, Social Security was left on the brink of bankruptcy, forcing the then new Government of the Popular Party to request a loan as one of its first measures to pay the pensions of our elders; in 2012, the Government of the Nation has found a Healthcare System on the brink of bankruptcy that even puts at risk the supply of pharmaceutical products.

The Government proposes to the Autonomous Communities the necessary adjustments, within the framework of their powers, to guarantee that healthcare continues to be universal, public and free, although it is supported by all the taxpayers of our country. It establishes equitable adjustments, controls health tourism, establishes a common portfolio of equal and quality healthcare throughout the national territory and provides a health card to all Spaniards.

Non-contributory pensions, social insertion pensions, and the unemployed without economic unemployment coverage, who until now paid 40 percent, will not pay pharmaceutical expenses, in addition to establishing three brackets, by income, for contributory pensions.

Royal Decree Law 16/2012 harmonizes the concept of non-urgent transport because it defines the financing amounts to ensure that there are no differences or discrimination between Autonomous Communities, between patients who are treated in one health service or another. For this, in addition to the existing Cohesion Fund, a Guarantee Fund is created.

Until now, non-urgent transport was subject to different management systems between Autonomous Communities according to patient groupings, collectives and agreements. The different payment methods created, for this concept, and without any doubt, a situation of authentic inequality in the healthcare field, since in some cases the contribution depended on the kilometers, in others said contribution was advanced and then reimbursed, and in others, it simply depended on the claim made by the patient.

Now, it should be the Technical Commission for Healthcare Benefits that advances and specifies the proposals to solve the inherited problems, adjusting concepts, defining what is urgent and non-urgent healthcare transport, defining the financing amount according to the transport and the criteria of medical indication and, all this, with criteria of quality, equality, effectiveness and efficiency.

Patient transport is not exactly the same as healthcare transport, which is a transport by healthcare requirement, whether it is urgent or not. These are special services and benefits configured with the participation and financing of the Ministry of Development, with special policies and agreements to facilitate that patients who have to travel between the islands, as is the case of the Canary Islands, and who need a different transport than the one they use in the Peninsula, can do so without additional cost to the user. Therefore, they remain shielded, they continue with the guarantee of maintaining these special agreements for the transport of patients between hospitals, in island autonomous communities and the rest of the Spanish State.

Healthcare does not need to spend more, but to spend everyone's money better. Without waste, with more effectiveness and efficiency in the management of resources and, with this, optimize the quality of the service.

*Francisco Cabrera García, national deputy of the PP

Most read