Acceso usuarios
Leioa, España
El envejecimiento poblacional, además de constituir un problema demográfico, afecta negativamente al sostenimiento del Sistema Sanitario Público. Por tanto, para conservar el nivel de las prestaciones sanitarias resulta necesario aumentar los recursos económicos para afrontar el incremento del gasto sanitario resultante. El objetivo del artículo será doble: primero, estimar el incremento de dicho gasto; segundo, determinar cuál es el crecimiento económico necesario para su sostenibilidad, representado por el PIB. Se concluye que mantener las prestaciones, en las circunstancias actuales, requiere un crecimiento económico suficiente, fruto del incremento de la productividad laboral unitaria de la población activa, necesarios para financiar dicho gasto. El marco geográfico se circunscribe a la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco (Euskadi).
In addition to being a demographic problem, the ageing of the population has a negative impact on the sustainability of the public health system. Therefore, in order to maintain the level of health services, it is necessary to increase the economic resources to face the increase in health expenditure. The objective of the article, therefore, will be twofold: first, to estimate the future increase in healthcare spending; second, to deter- mine what economic growth, represented by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is necessary for the sustainability of the Basque Country’s public healthcare system. The scenario of the study goes from 1988 to 2031 and is based on a retrospective analysis of economic, labour and demographic data from 1988 to 2016, which is then extrapolated prospectively between 2017 and 2031 and is based on three premises: - The impact of the ageing population as a consequence of increased life expectancy has traditionally been considered by the scientific literature as the most influential determinant of health expenditure, although there are others, such as the rise in the cost of new medical te- chnologies, which may also have an impact. - Relationship between health expenditure and economic growth: other research has shown a positive correlation between health expenditure and economic growth represented by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
