Health care remains the second largest spending item in Europe

Most of all the population of the EU countries still spends on social security. Closely behind it is the item of expenditure on health care, while over the year the costs for it did not decrease, but increased – by an average of 1%.

The second largest item of expenditure in countries EU amounted to 978 billion euros in 2019, and already in 2020 – 1073 billion euros. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that costs have increased mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Eurostat.

Relative spending on healthcare was highest in the Czech Republic and Austria – 9.2% of GDP. France is slightly behind them, with an indicator of 9%. The least spent on healthcare in Latvia (4.8%), Poland and Ireland (5.4% each), Estonia (slightly less than 6% of GDP), writes BB.LV.

Most of all, this indicator increased in Cyprus (from 3.5% to 5.9% of GDP), Malta (from 5.2% to 7.2%) and Hungary (from 4.5% to 6.4%) .

But as in Greece? Alas, in our country, 31% of the cost of medical care is compulsory insurance. Despite the availability of “free healthcare” in the country, more than a third (36%) of the money for medical care goes out of the pockets of the Greeks, according to disappointing data from Eurostat. For comparison: health care costs on average in Europe are 1/5, in Greece – 1/3! That is, we have the highest spending on private services in this area.

Over the past decade, Greece has been confidently holding its own at the top of the EU’s health care gap. This figure is related to price, distance and waiting time – 81% of the population, while the EU average in 2019 was only 1.7%. An important role is played here by the monthly limit on the number of visits to one doctor covered by EOPYY, which also includes the number of referrals for tests and various types of examinations.

A similar situation develops with medicines: private spending on medicines in Greece is 13% of all health care spending, in the European Union – less than 4%.

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