Public health, family hardship and loans for expenses that exceed one's economic possibilities by 40%.
Despite the government's efforts Melons and the allocation of 520 million in the last one Financial, public health in Italy is increasingly in difficulty and the repercussions are visible on the sick. People to cope with medical expenses is forced to get into debt. Over one billion euros: this is, according to estimates by Facile.it and reported by La Stampa, the value of the loans personal payments paid to patients in 2023 to cover medical expenses. Health has a cost and requesting a loan to support healthcare expenses is an increasingly widespread practice, so much so that, last year, the percentage weight of these loans was increased by 6.6% compared to 2022. The families who suffered economic hardship due to healthcare costs were 4.7% in 2019, rose to 5.2 in 2020, to now reach 6.1%, a percentage which in absolute numbers is one million and 580 thousand families.
Also growing – continues La Stampa – is the phenomenon of what are defined as “catastrophic healthcare costs“, according to the WHO, those who impoverish families when they exceed the economic capacity to support them by 40%. Furthermore, the times to obtain a specialist visit or diagnostic test continue to go in most cases beyond the maximum times established by law. And it could also be said that there is no direct correlation with the freelance professional activity of doctors, but the fact remains that while the patients wait as much and more than before, the collections for visits in solvent mode they increase. Then, as always, at inequalities economic ones add up territorialso if the impoverished families to seek treatment are 4% in the North East, they double to 8.2% in the Southwhile in the Center they are 5%, 5.9 in the North-West.
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