Dr. Juan Abarca, president of the IDIS Foundation, presents an x-ray on the sector that maintains that the savings generated for public health by the insurance is between 1,674 and 599 euros per year
annual review of the president of the IDIS Foundation, Dr. Juan Abarcato the functioning of the health system on the occasion of the presentation of the report ‘Private sanityProviding Value 2023′. An x-ray that, according to Abarca, shows the weight of a sector –56% of hospitals and 31% of beds in Spain are private– which, as always defends, covers the gaps in a public health system that is “drift”. So much so that the also president of HM Hospitales admits that people buy health insurance because they cannot access the public system and that has caused “suddenly, there is overcrowding” in private consultations, with “specific” waiting lists. in some cities and hospitals.
With the frankness that characterizes him, Dr. Abarca has not evaded any issue related to the health system. From public-private collaboration, to concerts, through the State Public Health Agency, the lack of investment or the flight of doctors. He has also praised the figure of the new Minister of Health, José Manuel Miñones, and the team that covers you in the Ministry of Health. The context, knowing the main data of the sector in the report that the entity prepares each year and that produces the first headlines as this sector has an increasing weight. The set of private health spending and public-private collaboration (concerts) reaches 40,727 million euros, 3.64% of GDP.
12 million insured
Private health continues to show its chest: the 10.3 million insured -not including the more than 1.7 million mutual members- contribute to savings in the public system. Their estimates indicate that the savings generated by the insurance are between 1,674 euros per year (if they are exclusively private patients) and 599 euros per year (if the patient makes mixed use, that is, they consume public and private resources). This is how he explained it Martha Villanueva, Director General of the IDIS Foundation who, pointed out, if all the insured in Spain are taken into account, the total savings generated to the National Health System amounts to a range that goes from 6,185 million to 17,283depending on whether these patients use a mixed system or exclusive of public and private health.
Abarca calls for a new General Health Law adapted to the current sociodemographic and patient situation
It is there where Dr. Juan Abarca made his initial considerations on how bad -he summarized- the system is. He advocated giving stability to the concerts with private health – he complained that in Santiago there are two hospitals that could lose these concerts – and promote the quality of care and, in addition, It dates back to the beginning of the Spanish healthcare model, from 1963.
In his exhibition, he asked to bet by a pact for that system as agreed in the document for Economic and Social Reconstruction approved by political parties in the pandemic and advocated for a new General Health Law adapted to the current sociodemographic situation. The current one, he assured, has more than 70% of its articles repealed or are not applicable.
The “drift” of the system
The president of the IDIS Foundation entered fully into the problems that he believes are leading this health model to drift. He spoke of “a permanent fight” for “trying to minimize the importance of private health so that the jewel in the crown prevails, the cause of the welfare state” when he said, in communities like Madrid, 40% of the resources are private. “Our Foundation does not want the private sector to grow, but to normalize it”, he pointed out .
He pointed to moments when 85% of patients combine private healthcare with their assistance to the public consultations. “The problem is when patients do not want to go to public health” and criticized, for example, the 600 days on average that it takes to finance heThe new drugs approved by Europe which, he said, “ends up dragging the private sector”.
Doctor Abarca insisted: the patients no longer go to public health for, among other reasons, the long waiting lists and that 85% of people who used to combine the two systems, now only go to private consultations. “People buy private insurance because you need to access the health system,” he asserted. For this reason, he admitted, “suddenly, there is a massification of private health. We will end up adapting. But in certain hospitals and provinces there are specific waiting lists.”
Data from the private health sector indicate that it carries out 33% of surgical interventions (41.7% if one also takes into account parameters such as replacement concerts and the network for public use); it registers 21.9% of discharges (29.3% if we look at the above parameters) and attends 24.5% of emergencies (30.6% if these same parameters are included). 56% of hospitals and 31% of beds in Spain are private. In addition, 48% of magnetic resonance equipment, 43% of mammography equipment and 39% of the PET are in the sector.