ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the cost containment measures. Health care financing in Spain is a mixture of public and private financing. Private health care expenditure, which constitutes around one-fifth of the total health care expenditure, can be broken down into payments for voluntary health insurance, direct payments, which are mostly for extra-hospital care, medicines and other pharmaceutical supplies, dentistry, prostheses and other expenses. The Spanish health care system has evolved from a health service that was largely fragmented, characterized by scattered competencies and involving a multitude of bodies. The Spanish health service has been financed via general taxation and social security contributions since 1978, when revenues and payments were first linked. Far from reaching a national consensus on the future of the Spanish health care sector, the Parliamentary Commission has finished its work with an open social debate on the future of the financing and regulation of the Spanish health system.
