Healthcare: «Sardinia cannot exceed the spending limits for private individuals». The government is challenging the regional law
The provision, one of the last of the Solinas council, authorized Ares to allocate 5.8 million to accredited private operators. The CDM's no: «Not even the special statute regions can exceed the limits imposed by the government»
The spending limits assigned to private individuals accredited in healthcare cannot be exceeded. Not even in Sardinia , despite it being a region with special statute.
With this motivation, the Council of Ministers decided, on the proposal of the Minister for Regional Affairs and Autonomy Roberto Calderoli, to challenge the latest resolution approved by the Sardinian Regional Council , Law 1 of 2024 which contains various provisions regarding tourism promotion , healthcare and more.
The Sardinia Region, while providing for the financing of healthcare spending with its own resources , «cannot establish a remuneration in favor of accredited private operators beyond the assigned spending limits and beyond the maximum spending limit envisaged by the current national legislation on the reduction of the purchase of volumes of healthcare services from accredited private individuals for specialist outpatient care and hospital care". This is what we read in the appeal from the Council of Ministers. The national law, it is recalled, is designed "with a spending review perspective, with objectives of containing public spending, for all regions and autonomous provinces" .
THE POSITION OF THE REGION
The provision of the Sardinia Region provides that the residual resources in the balance sheets of Ats in liquidation, approximately 3.3 million euros, are transferred to Ares and that Ares will then allocate a total of 5.8 million in 2024 to private funding bodies . The Region referred to law 1 of 2023, which states: «The unused resources referred to in the spending ceiling assigned for 2020 for hospital care can be redistributed among accredited private providers who have produced a hospital activity exceeding the budget allocated in the year 2021 and to increase the spending ceiling for hospital care in the year 2023". All this "even beyond the limits imposed by national legal provisions - was the position of the Council -, as the Region provides with its own resources for the financing of healthcare spending" .
COMMUNITY OBLIGATIONS AND PUBLIC FINANCE
This is not the case for the national government. The rule requiring the reduction of the purchase of services from private individuals also applies to regions with special statutes and autonomous provinces and above all, it is underlined, «constitutes a rule for the coordination of public finances referred to in article 117, third paragraph of the Constitution» . A rule which therefore " does not provide for the possibility of derogation even if the region provides for the financing of health spending with its own resources ", considering that the provisions "are applied in order to guarantee compliance with community obligations and the achievement of public finance objectives ".
(Unioneonline/L)
