Mef: 2.3 billion more for healthcare in 2025, 1.2 billion from the manoeuvre

"Let's say that yesterday in the Council of Ministers disappointment was quite widespread among colleagues... I think the least disappointed one should be Schillaci": with this quip, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Giancarlo Giorgetti, during the press conference at Palazzo Chigi to illustrate the manoeuvre approved in the Council of Ministers, responded to those who asked him whether the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, was disappointed by the allocations planned for the Health Service in 2025. What emerges from the budget document sent to Brussels for the health service is that there will be an additional 1.245 billion for 2025 and then over 3 billion in 2026. The MEF, however, clarifies: compared to 2024 there will be a total of 2.3 billion for healthcare.

In the days before, Minister Schillaci had anticipated that there would be even more than 3 billion for healthcare next year - among the latest hypotheses, there was even talk of 3.7 billion for 2025 alone - but the reality that emerges from the Budget Planning Document sent to Europe seems rather different. In fact, as the tables attached to the PDB make clear, healthcare will receive 880 million in 2025 (0.04% of GDP), about 3.1 billion in 2026 (0.148%) and about 17o million in 2027 (0.008%). The resources, the document goes on to say, will be used 'in favour of the health workforce' and to 'increase the level of financing of the National Health Fund'. Among other things, both the premier Giorgia Meloni and the deputy premier Matteo Salvini had emphatically underlined the fact that the 3.5 billion contribution requested from the banks would go to healthcare.

The Ministry of the Economy 'refutes' calculations that only EUR 880 million will be allocated to healthcare in 2025. "To healthcare next year will go, compared to 2024 2366 million euro more". Thus Via XX Settembre in a note. In fact, the Mef clarifies that the scarce 900 million envisaged by the PDB would be an additional net value for personnel expenses and new hirings that would be worth, in actual spending values, about 1,245 million euro. To this sum would be added what is already provided for in current legislation on the health front: last year's manoeuvre in fact already allocated just over 1 billion. Precisely by adding these two amounts we arrive at the 2,336 million indicated by the Mef.

Among the measures envisaged by the manoeuvre for the health sector are in particular a recruitment plan for about 30,000 doctors and nurses and the de-taxation of health workers' pay (flat tax at 30% in 2025 and 15% in 2026). These measures, which at this point will deploy their effects mainly from 2026 or risk substantial slippage. For 2025, however, the additional billion allocated by last year's manoeuvre will also be available. At this point, recruitment could start with a small contingent next year and increase the following year. In the balance, however, are other measures under consideration, such as the updating of the Drg, the tariffs for hospital services, which have been at a standstill for about 20 years, and which alone are worth 1 billion.