El gasto sanitario en las diferentes comunidades autónomas de España

Abstract

The Spanish Economic and Social Council (which includes business, trade union and other organisations representing the interests of citizens), the Government's highest consultative body, has recently published the health expenditure per inhabitant in 2015 for the 17 Autonomous Communities (ACs) whose health systems make up the Spanish National Health System1. In its Socioeconomic and Labour Report it states that last year the average health expenditure per inhabitant increased by 1.82% on average in Spain, to 1,232 euros, with a forecast increase of 3.8% for 2016. As can be seen, health expenditure in our country is again increasing, which is good news, but the data show the strong dispersion that exists in regional health budgets2. When this expenditure is analysed in each Autonomous Region, we can see that there is a growing difference between the various Regions in terms of investment in health care per citizen per year. In fact, at the head of health expenditure in 2015, the Basque Country was the Community which allocated the largest budget to this chapter, while Andalusia was the one which allocated the least, according to data from the Economic and Social Council. Galicia plans to increase its health budget for this year by 18.7% and Aragon by 12.6% and they are the ones that are increasing the most, compared to the 0.8% growth in the Basque Country or the 1% growth in Castile and Leon or the stability of the accounts in Castile-La Mancha, Catalonia and Extremadura. The Basque Country, Navarre and Asturias were the communities with the most generous budgets in 2015, while Andalusia, Valencia and La Rioja budgeted amounts lower than the national average. In 2015, Galicia lowered its health accounts compared to the previous year by 10.37% and also Aragon, although in a lesser proportion, by 0.30%, while the Balearic Islands increased them by 10.30%.