Older people to receive cards worth 300–500 euros to pay for prescription charges and healthcare costs
The assistance is intended to cover everything from dental appointments to the purchase of medicines
For a budget forced to drop many of its flagship initiatives, it is promising one of its most symbolic measures: at least in terms of its financial value, which, according to the latest simulations, is estimated to reach as much as 2.5–2.8 billion euros.
How it will work
This is a card intended for the elderly to help cover healthcare costs not covered by the national public health service. The idea, championed in particular by Forza Italia and endorsed at the latest leaders’ summit on the Budget Bill, is to introduce a flat-rate allowance for those who, due to their age, require private healthcare more frequently.
Thresholds, target groups and amounts are all still to be defined, amidst the complex jigsaw puzzle involving the other measures in the Budget Bill and with responses from Brussels still awaited regarding flexibility and the procedures for applying the energy safeguard clause – a game of interlocking pieces that affects the overall structure of the budget.
The potential audience
But the aim, it was said, is to set up a substantial fund that could provide between 300 and 500 euros to those aged over 75 whose income falls below a certain threshold. The threshold set at 50,000 euros would cover almost 7 million people; around 5.6 million older people earn less than 35,000 euros a year, whilst 4.8 million earn less than 29,000 euros. Once the size of the fund has been determined, the size of the beneficiary group will determine the amounts allocated to each recipient.
A similar mechanism translates the concept of a healthcare cashback – that is, the ambitious system for providing public support for healthcare expenditure in advance, which, under the current tax deduction scheme, is only received the following year – into more manageable terms within the limited scope available. Not only that: direct payments to recipients would help those on the lowest incomes, who, due to their lower tax liability, often have to forgo the tax relief because they lack the necessary income tax allowance.
