The Liberal Initiative (IL) said this Thursday that 34% of Portuguese with health insurance are “desperate” at the lack of response from the National Health Service, accusing the PS of being the “best friend” of the private sector.
“In 2015, 25% of Portuguese people had health insurance. At the end of 2021, 34% of Portuguese have a private health insurance policy out of despair because they cannot find a solution in SNS,” said the MP. IL Mario Amorim López during the parliamentary debate on the state of the National Health Service (SNS), requested by the PSD panel but not attended by Minister Ana Paula Martins.
Given the growth in insurance coverage recorded in recent years, Mario Amorim Lopes asked the question “who really is the best friend of the private health sector in Portugal if not PS”, even while denying that investments in SNS benefit users.
According to the deputy, in practice, the increase in funds allocated to the SNS under socialist rule has led to the fact that “1.5 million Portuguese were left without a family doctor and queues for surgery and specialist consultations.”
In addition, it turned out that the Portuguese “rushed to health centers, desperate for primary health care”, and also “closed emergency departments and doctors fleeing the SNS throughout the country”, the IL MP emphasized.
In her response, Socialist MP Mariana Vieira da Silva found IL’s insistence on insurance data “very curious”, saying that although 34% of Portuguese have insurance, it “only costs 4.5% of health care costs”.
“Health care in this country is provided by the SNS,” the former minister emphasized, adding that these insurances for the most part “are part of the packages that companies pay.”
“They were not chosen out of desperation and do not burden the lives of families,” said Mariana Vieira da Silva, emphasizing in her speech that between 2015 and 2024 the SNS budget increased by 5.6 billion euros, plus 72%. , which made it possible to hire an additional 29.5 thousand specialists during this period.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Sandra Hansen, a news website Author and Reporter for 24 News Reporters. I have over 7 years of experience in the journalism field, with an extensive background in politics and political science. My passion is to tell stories that are important to people around the globe and to engage readers with compelling content.