Gestor bibliográfico Crisis y Salud

Stuckler and McKee (1) published an article focusing on the severe cutbacks made in the Greek health sector as a result of the ongoing financial crisis and their impact on that country's current and future health outcomes. Spain has responded to the crisis mostly through cutbacks in public spending, particularly in health care. Recently Spain has undertaken a structural reform of its health system (2). This reform radically undermines the foundations of the country's national health system, converting it from a universal coverage model financed through taxes and free at the point of delivery to a Bismarckian model funded through contributions from members affiliated to social security bodies (3). Furthermore, three new modes of benefit catalogues have been established: basic ("essential" activities), supplementary (pharmaceutical benefits, ortho-prothesic devices, nutritional products, non-emergency health transportation, etc.) and ancillary ("non-essential" activities). In addition, the new reform measures establish co-payments for the two latter modes of benefits, a requirement that, until now, only applied to pharmaceutical products.