Gestor bibliográfico Crisis y Salud

As was pointed out by Minué-Lorenzo et al.(1) in their recent comment, the Spanish healthcare system is moving back from a universal healthcare coverage based on the National Health Service system to a Social Security system according to the law from April the 20th (2). This decree law has excluded undocumented immigrants from the healthcare system. It has also excluded those people older than 26y, and disabled people with less than 65% of disability, both if they never contributed to the Social Security System (called uninsured), unless they are demonstrably under the poverty line. Now it seems that the Spanish government, attempting to solve several criticisms to this law, is drafting a new Royal Decree Law. According to a published note in the newspaper El País (3) the new draft aims to keep out of the system “only” undocumented immigrants and those who earn more than 100000 € / year. This new law determines that people who are legally resident in Spain are entitled to health benefits if they earn less than the above mentioned figure. Nevertheless, it continues using the terms "insured / uninsured" and "beneficiaries" and claims people that never contributed to Social Security to request access to healthcare system within the next 3 months of the entry into force of the law (next August 31st). The latter contradicts the previous definition of beneficiaries like people legally resident in the country, and breaks one more time the universality of the system.