medical care | MY SPECIAL DOCTOR

This year, Italians will record a record for medical spending on health care: 40 billion. This figure is the result of a study conducted by Censis in collaboration with Rbm Health Insurance. Apparently, the medical expenses of Italians are steadily increasing: suffice it to say that one of the periods examined, from 2013 to 2017, the cost of health care increased by 9.6 percent, almost double the overall consumption.

The study on the rising cost of medical care was presented by Censis and Medical Insurance and the results were shown during Welfare Day 2018, confirming that more than 44 million Italians in the past year were forced to pay for various health care services.

Private health care spending is affecting precarious households in particular greatly: between 2014 and 2016, consumption by working-class households remained almost the same, while health care costs increased by 6.4 percent, about €86 more per household. For entrepreneurs, on the other hand, the increase in health care costs goes almost hand in hand with the sharp increase in general consumption, and here again we are talking about 80€ per family. The problem is that for weak families almost all of the 13th month is directed for family health care: as much as €1100 per year, which for 7 out of 10 families has a major impact on family resources, just think that there are those who have gone into debt to pay for visits. Speaking of numbers, more than 7 million Italians took on debt in the past year alone, half of whom had to use their savings or even proceeds from the sale of a home.

While there is this great sense of difficulty in paying for and obtaining medical health care services, the flip side of the coin is quite alarming: according to the study conducted by Censis, more than 12 million Italians have managed to skip the long waiting lists in public health care through recommendations and connections. Endless waits are one of the main reasons why people complain about the health service, and along with cases of malpractice, resentment toward health care has increased, with half of Italians (about 54 percent) believing that treatment and diagnostic opportunities are not equal for all, finding agreement particularly among patients with low incomes and residents of Southern Italy.

In 2018, about 539 thousand Italians could not afford some
medical care
and adequate medications because they did not have sufficient income. The number rises staggeringly to 13 million if we talk about people who have decreased their visits, and all of this is documented in the 2018 Report sponsored by the non-profit Banco Farmaceutico Foundation and BFResearch, “Donate to Cure: Health Poverty and Drug Donation.”
The numbers in the report show a disturbing truth: poverty and inequality in Italy are increasing, and they also have an impact on health. The example is that poor families use 2.5 percent of their total spending to receive medical care, compared with 4.5 percent (almost double) for a normal family.

Another disturbing finding is that, having to cut spending on their own medical care, more and more families are using their health care expenditures almost exclusively for the use of medicines, because spending on preventions is being cut drastically. The case of dental services is demonstrative: poor families spend about €30 a year compared to more than €300 for the rest of Italians.
The insistence on saving money at all costs, even on health care, is a habit that is catching on in our country and is confirmed by data from the triennium 2014-16: affluent families have been able to increase their preventive care with checkups and examinations, while poor families have always gone on the cheap, deeming various treatments “not urgent” or “unnecessary.”

Several anomalies have also been recorded regarding the number of deaths, as Gian Carlo Blangiardo says, a demographer at the University of Milan Bicocca and the next president in pectore of Istat: “From the most recent demographic balance sheet released by Istat, there were 649,000 deaths in Italy in 2017, 34,000 more than in 2016. In 2015, there were 50 thousand more deaths than in 2014. In the last century, only during World War II (1941-44) and 1929 were similar peaks recorded.” Finally, Sergio Daniotti spoke, the president of the non-profit Banco Farmaceutico Foundation, who had his say on Italians’ spending on medical care: “There are far too many people who do not have enough income to afford the bare minimum to survive. The data published this year in the Health Poverty Report show that the phenomenon has been substantially consolidated over time and is not expected to decrease significantly in the coming years.”