Maribel Mora and José Ignacio García, the two Adelante Andalucía deputies in the regional parliament. (Joaquín Corchero/Parliament of Andalusia)
The Parliament of Andalusia sent to the Congress of Deputies a law that seeks to be implemented beyond Despeñaperros. Specifically, the rule establishes free optical and visual health products for minors and, in the case of adults, financing according to income. “The law creates a universal right to visual health for minors, taking into account that educational and child development is closely related to visual health,” he says. Infobae Spain the deputy of Forward Andalusia in the regional parliament, Maribel Mora.
Its formation, with only two representatives in the Andalusian chamber, promoted the law, and after months of negotiations—mainly with the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno Bonilla (PP), whose party has an absolute majority—, managed to get the law approved unanimously last Wednesday. This step allowed the sending of the standard to the Congresswhere it is expected that their honors will give the go-ahead in a few months. “Hopefully it will be in force in 2025,” Mora predicts.
The deputy of the formation founded by Teresa Rodriguez y José María González Kichiamong others, is confident that its processing in Congress will be quick because the proposal has achieved unprecedented unanimity. “We understand that there will be interest from the groups that are in Madrid to expedite it,” he adds. To establish this forecast, Mora also relies on the fact that the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padillaconveyed to them in a meeting held a few months ago “his desire for it to be processed quickly.”
The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, and the Adelante Andalucía deputy, Maribel Mora, during a meeting. (Francisco J. Olmo/Europa Press)
The representative of Adelante Andalucía believes that there have been two factors that have tipped the balance towards its approval. On the one hand, the results collected in the 2020 European Health Survey, which showed that 61% of the population use some eye health product, especially glasses and contact lenses.
This survey reflects that there are some conditions on the use of optical products and visual health. Thus, there is a “clear class bias”which would be related to the price of optical and visual health products, in addition to other social factors, such as “the existence of up to 12 points of difference between the percentage of use of glasses and contact lenses among the professional categories of ‘unskilled workers’ ‘ and ‘directors and managers’, in favor of the latter.”
Likewise, from the survey it is possible to extract a “territorial bias “which would undoubtedly be related, along with other variables, to the economic bias.” In Andalusia, the percentage of people who use glasses or contact lenses is 54.89%, six points below the state averageand it is the autonomous community with the lowest index in that sense. “And it is not because we Andalusians see better”Mora says. “The territorial and class component means that everything that involves visual health in Andalusia is especially being violated by the situation of poverty,” summarizes the deputy.
The other factor is that the financing of these benefits will not fall on this region, “crushed by the financing system that exists in the State”, but must be assumed by the National Health System. According to the estimates made by the training, the annual cost of the measure would be 261.64 million eurosof which 50.15 million they would have to be transferred to Andalusia. “It is a very acceptable amount within the million-dollar budget that the Ministry of Health”, says Mora.
Taking into account that the average cost of glasses is 197.35 euros, the population of minors with unresolved visual problems is 31%, according to data offered by this Andalusian party. Although there are visual health products included in the common portfolio of services of the National Health System, within the orthoprosthetic provision, the standard indicates that it is “necessary to contemplate a new provision that encompasses them, taking into account demand and differences due to socioeconomic reasons “what the population suffers when accessing these products.”
Therefore, it is necessary to include this benefit “free of charge for minors and with contributions, depending on their socioeconomic situation, for adults, thus incorporating measures that allow reduce the social gap that, in relation to visual poverty, Spain currently suffers and that guarantee equal access to this new right of citizens that is enshrined with the publication of this law,” summarizes the law.
The party claims that “Andalusianism defends universal rights and for all”. Mora also highlights that this law ends an existing loophole, since “visual health has been given a different entity.” In this sense, it underlines its importance in Andalusia. “We are very happy to extend a right,” he adds, and then ask the rest of the groups to contribute to promoting the norm in Congress after Andalusia laid the first stone thanks to the work of its formation: “We have made the arrangements here opportune for it to be so.”
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