Gimbe: ‘Private expenditure on treatment increases by 10% in a year’ – Health care

Health expenditure paid out of pocket by Italian families sees an increase of 10.3% in 2023 alone and almost 4.5 million people gave up treatment in the same year. These figures, together with regional and territorial inequality, healthcare migration and the inconvenience of waiting times and overcrowded emergency rooms “suggest that the sustainability of the NHS is close to the point of no return “. The picture was taken from Gimbe’s seventh report on the National Health Service, which was presented today in Rome.

Compared to 2022, in 2023 Istat data document that the increase in total health spending (+ 4,286 million euros) was supported only by families as direct expenditure (3,806 million) or through health and insurance funds (553 million), as there was substantial stability. public consumption. “People – explains Cartabellotta – have to pay for an increasing number of health care services out of their own pockets. A situation that is getting worse”.

‘Out-of-pocket’ expenditure, i.e. what was paid directly by citizens, registered an average annual increase of 1.6% (+5,326 euros in 10 years) in 2023 with 10.3% (+3,806) in the period 2021- 2022. million) in just one year. In addition to this is the fact that, according to Istat, in 2023, 4.48 million people gave special visits or diagnostic tests for various reasons, of which 2.5 million were for economic reasons, almost 600,000 more than the year before.

Expenditure on prevention will then fall: compared to 2022, in 2023 it will be reduced by 1,933 million (-18.6%), even if the cost of cutting prevention today will be very high in terms of health in the years to come Numbers that show, explains Nino Cartabellotta, president of the Gimbe Foundation, “how the fundamental principles of universality, fairness and equality are now betrayed and that the constitutional right to protection health is slowly falling, especially for the lower socio-economic groups. weak”.