The Spanish national government will not whip out the scissors and start cutting spending for now, something that regional governments such as Catalonia have done. It will wait until the next Consejo Interterritorial del Sistema Nacional de Salud, a conference to be held at the end of February, to tackle reforms and cutbacks that are necessary to guarantee the viability of a national system that is currently 15 billion euros in arrears with its service providers according to figures reported yesterday by the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality.
During her appearance before the Commission of Health and Social Services, Ana Mato did little more than delineate the path that her department will take to fight for cohesion and equity within the National Health System by means of a major Welfare and Public Health Pact (Pacto de Estado Social y Sanitario in Spanish) that will be summarized in a Law of Basic Services, which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced previously in his inauguration address.
Raising minimum exemptions
The Ministry did not forget its policy about families and remembered that the Government is trying to revise taxes in order to achieve better tax equality. To do so, it will increase the personal and family tax exemption minimums for Spain's personal income tax (IRPF). The Minister of Economy and Finance will formalize the measure.
The official goal is to guarantee citizens equal access to health services and benefits, while the regional governments are not a single vaccination schedule, their surgery and diagnostic waiting lists are very different, and they are not financing the same pharmacies, treatments or services.