Health expenditure on GDP, Italy lags behind other countries after Covid

The lesson of Covid seems to have left its mark on most developed countries, which even without reaching the peak of record funding reached between 2020 and 2022 have decided to invest more in healthcare than they did before the pandemic. One of the few exceptions is Italy, which has instead returned to spending as much as it did before the Covid tsunami, at least if we take into consideration the parameter of public health expenditure on GDP, an indicator that the government and majority often contest as untrue while the opposition agitates for criticism. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in its latest "Health at Glance" report, however, continues to use it as it does every year, and it turns out that Italy, both in terms of total expenditure and only in terms of the public expenditure that finances the health service, is below the average of the OECD countries, despite the fact that 20 years ago it was slightly above, and in any case far behind countries such as France, Germany and England, and now overtaken by Spain.

In Italy, in 2024, 5,164 dollars per person were spent on healthcare, compared to an average of 5,967 dollars (purchasing power being equal), with the US reaching the record figure of 14,885 dollars per capita, while in relation to GDP the figure is 8.4%, compared to the OECD average of 9.3%, but with many countries - not counting the 17.2% of the US - that are now in double figures, such as Germany (12.3% of GDP), France (11.5%) and England (11.1%). The most sensitive number, however, is perhaps that of public funds destined to finance healthcare, which in Italy are worth 6.3% of GDP, far behind England's 9.1%, France's 9.7% and Germany's 10.6%, and surpassed even by Spain, which stands at 6.7% (it was 6.4% in 2019). What is striking is that all these countries, despite no longer touching the record figures reached during the pandemic, have increased their public funding compared to the past, while Italy is back exactly to square one, i.e. 6.3% of public spending on health over GDP, the same level it had in 2019, i.e. in the pre-Covid era.

The OECD report warns, however, that between now and 2045 health spending will have to grow by an average of at least 1.5 per cent of GDP to respond to the push of technology and the ever-increasing health needs of an ageing population. What still strikes us about Italy, however, is the fact that, in the face of lower funding than many other countries on average, the health conditions of Italians remain good, as demonstrated by the fact that we have a life expectancy of 83.5 years, 2.4 years more than the average of OECD countries, even if growth has slowed down and in fact we have been overtaken even here by Spain (84 years). Even the indicator on avoidable mortality sees us in an enviable position with only 93 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the OECD average of 145, thanks mainly to our lifestyles, which in fact see in Italy an incidence of obese people of 12% compared to the average of 19%. The question now is whether this level of funding will be enough to maintain this still enviable performance.