For the first time since the Spanish Health System was created in 1986, retired people will have to pay prescription charges for medicines. All workers will now also pay a fee based on their income.
In
April, Mariano Rajoy’s government announced a wide series of changes,
with the co-payment system being just one of them. The aim of these cuts
is to save seven billion euros and try to bring Spain back in line with
European financial recommendations.Other cuts aiming to save money include the withdrawal of free medical care for illegal immigrants and a series of efficiency measures, including a clampdown on health tourism. How ‘efficient’ these measures actually are remains to be seen.
In a long standing reciprocal agreement, the UK government currently pays £3,500 a year for each retiree to receive Spanish health care – this entitles them to the same care as a Spanish citizen, but as of now British state pensioners resident in Spain will have to pay prescription charges. Many expats were caught by surprise when they took prescriptions to pharmacies this week and for the first time were asked to pay 10% of the value of the medicines.
Charges
The charges are levied as follows:
- An annual income of under 18,000€: workers pay 40% of prescription charges; pensioners pay 10%, capped at 8€ per month.
- An annual income of 18,000€ to 100,000€: workers pay 50% of charges; pensioners pay 10% of charges, capped at 18€ per month.
- An annual income of over 100,000€: workers pay 60% of charges; pensioners to pay 60%, which is capped at 60€ a month.
Those unaffected by the charges will be the long term unemployed, disabled people, and people being treated for alcoholism and drug addiction.
The government states that the changes are the only way to maintain the welfare state and one Minister said “It’s time we end the culture of everything for free”, but critics claim that the co-payment system is a tax on disease.
In an article published in the highly respected medical journal The Lancet, paediatrician Marciano Sanchez Bayle, a spokesman for the Federation of Associations for the Defence of Public Health said “It punishes those with more limited resources and more health problems”.
A Blow to Pensioners
Across Spain the new prescription charges are seen as a blow to pensioners who believe they have already paid their dues.
One 77-year-old described the charge as “outrageous”. “When you reach a certain age it doesn’t cost less to live but we have to survive on less amid rising prices.” He went on to say that pensioners had already tightened their belts, and now they were being hit again with the extra costs of prescriptions on top of a hike on utility bills.
A spokesman for the Democratic Union of Pensioners of Spain said “An extra expense for these people, however small it may seem, will prevent them from meeting other payments”. The Union carried on to state that more than 4 million pensions fall below the minimum wage.
It appears that there are some tough times ahead for pensioners in Spain, be they Spaniards or Expats.
