The Spanish government continues to make cutbacks to the healthcare system. Even though the Ministry of Health and its leader Ana Mato assure that "all adjustments have been made already," the Healthcare team from elEconomista has discovered that the government is preparing a new law concerning drug prices that will attempt to save another 500 million euros next year.
These cutbacks will reduce national subsidies for prescription drugs and add more stringent requirements to the approval process that new pharmacies have to go through in order to do business. The news catches the sector by surprise, because both national and regional governments in Spain are losing 3.6 billion euros for prescription drugs administered in pharmacies thanks to a series of cutbacks and the copay system.
In fact, regional government healthcare spending has dropped by 12%, and nearly 5% of that reduction derives from cuts to what the government spends on prescription drug subsidies.
So why make more cuts now? The truth is that the EU is pushing the government to balance the budget as soon as possible and has not been shy about recommending more cutbacks.
The issue is that the Ministry of Healthcare has not performed structural reforms. We have too many hospitals that cost too much to run. The Healthcare Ministry always resorts to the quickest and easiest fix. This time, it will make cuts to pharmacies, which are already suffering because the Ministry of Finance decided to delay 6 billion euros in payments until next year in order to make budget. The delays and cutbacks will hurt the sector, which employs nearly 40,000 people, and also make it harder for citizens to get the treatment they need.