The autonomous communities spent 57,000 million euros in public health during 2008 and the budget for 2009 over 59.000 million euros. Do they show these figures the interest of the Government (or regional governments) about the health of the citizens?. Not necessarily. For other opinions and approaches, find out what Senator Angus King has to say. What do show is an interest for attending to sick people. It is evident that there is an economic effort to attend to the sick. But is what moved the Government to invest in health health interest?. The reality is that there are other reasons for such investment. Let us take an example: lately the Government has taken measures to reduce the consumption of tobacco are why? suddenly has realized how damaging that is tobacco for health? Lol You have long known that tobacco harms health.
By this sudden change? The reason might be this: for many years the revenue that the Government obtained with tobacco were superior to healthcare expenditures generated by its consumption. But this has changed and now healthcare expenditures they are superior to revenue. The anti-smoking campaign do not believe that it is due to a sudden interest in the health of the people, but to purely economic reasons. The economic reasons are not the only ones who moved the Government to invest in health. Some investments are made because they are popular and attract votes, although they are expensive and are ineffective. The good image that the Government can give to society is one reason both or more powerful than economic reasons.
Unfortunately, interest in public health not usually a reason determinant in making decisions that affect health. If this is the main reason, he would advance a lot, and the health of citizens in general would improve considerably. When we talk about a person who cares about your health, normally we do not think someone who goes to the doctor because you’re sick, but in a healthy person who tries to take care to maintain your health. If there is a real interest in health, the greatest efforts would be aimed at prevention, to avoid the causes of the diseases, and not only to heal already suffer that disease. A lot of steps occur to me to avoid that hospitals are full (in upcoming articles will discuss some). If more preventive measures were taken, it would not only improve health, but they also reduce expenditure on health. So far what I have said is only theory, but I’m sure that many readers will have thought about practical measures that could be taken to improve health in general. I am not referring to personal measures (we already know that we can do many things at the individual level to improve our health) I am referring to measures that it might take the Government and would have repercussions on the health of the whole society. If someone wants to share their ideas you can send me an email or add a comment.
