The Spanish health system is one of the most highly regarded health systems in the world. Of the 200 Best Hospitals in the World in 2021 list by Newsweek in collaboration with Statista, Inc., 11 are from Spain. What makes the Spanish health system work very well, and how is it different from the health systems in other countries?
Principles of the Spanish health system
The fact that the State becomes the guarantee of the right to health is one of the most fundamental characteristics of the Spanish health system. As a result, the State is in charge of financing and overseeing the system.
For its part, the Spanish National Health System believes that attention is universal. The whole public has the right to health care. As a result, neither the user’s social security status nor his or her economic ability should be considered. Public coverage is excellent, but private coverage is also excellent since investors are required to get private health insurance.
Deconcentration and accessibility are important. A health regionalization method is used to run the system. It tries to bring service delivery closer to citizens in this way. Furthermore, care in metropolitan areas is decongested in this manner. It aspires to make health-care resource management more democratic and participative. Primary care is the foundation of health care as well as participation of the community. Citizens in Spain have the right to participate in the planning and management of the health system.
Health systems in other countries
In terms of technology and professional training, the United States health system is among the best in the world. Even in distant and isolated corners of the United States, one may locate clinics and hospitals. The majority of these hospitals are private, however they are financed by municipal and state governments.
In 2013, it was projected that the average cost of health care in the United States was $8,000 per capita. Luxembourg was spending $4,000 per capita at the time, whereas the United Kingdom, which the WHO regards to have the greatest system in the world, was only allocating $3,600 per capita. For its part, the United States devotes 16% of its GDP on health in 2017.
However, despite high health care spending, the United States’ results are behind those of most industrialized countries. The United States, for example, is ranked 34th in the world in terms of infant mortality, well behind all industrialized countries and even several developing ones.
The US health care system, like that of most other nations, is a blend of public and private insurance. However, the private sector’s dominance over the public sector, as well as the lack of universal health care, set it apart from the others.
One would believe that a wealthy country’s health care system, which also happens to call itself socialist, is public, universal, and free. However, this is also not the case in China. There is no universal public health care in China. Hospitals, contrary to popular belief, have created copayments across the country.
The forms of medical coverage available in China right now are workers’ compensation insurance which are generally paid by the contracting business in metropolitan areas, insurance for city dwellers which is paid for by the government and protects individuals who do not work, and new cooperative insurance for rural communities.
The first two encompass over 300 million people apiece, while the third covers nearly 800 million people. Overall, China assures that 95 percent of its 1.4 billion people have access to basic healthcare. According to the China Medical Association, the country has over 4.5 million physicians and nurses, yet the ratio of doctors to patients is still low.
However, just because care is widely available does not imply it is free. Patients are compelled to pay more than 30% of medical expenditures on average, greatly beyond the World Health Organization’s suggested threshold of 20%. Furthermore, the costs of treating disorders outside of primary care are exorbitant, and a large portion of the population cannot pay them.
The expenses of some drugs, such as those used to treat cancer, are very exorbitant. So much so that the disease’s survival rate in some rural sections of the nation is only about 30%.
In addition, there are insurance and private hospitals in China, where the fees for the patient are onerous and only accessible to a select few. Despite this, many people are drawn to this sort of coverage due to the poor quality of several governmental services.
The Spanish health system model
The Spanish health system is not as straightforward as public or private health care, but it does have its flaws. Publicly owned hospitals with public management are on one end of the spectrum, while privately owned hospitals with purely private administration are on the other. There are, however, many models in between.
There are “pure” public hospitals, which are those in which the property belongs to the Social Security fund and is handled by public resources, and there are private hospitals that are private firms. There are exceptions, using hybrid models such as hospitals that are publicly owned but privately operated. Notably many of the doctors in the public sector also work in the private sector.