It is an excellent time to open a hospital or to invest in a clinic, obviously private. The market is solid. Italians have understood that taxes are not enough to get treatment and you have to pay out of your own pocket. The Meloni government lends a hand: every cut to public health opens up a new field for the health business. It’s time to take advantage of it. This is suggested by the report from the Research Area of the Mediobanca group dedicated to the 31 major entrepreneurs in the private healthcare sector.
Colossi such as, in order of turnover, the Papiniano group (the Lombard-centric holding of the San Donato and San Raffaele Groups), Humanitas controlled by the steel company Techint and led by the former vice-president of Confindustria Gianfelice Rocca, the Villa Maria Group founded by the former warehouse worker and today president and to Ettore Sansavini, the Vatican Gemelli and the Kos of the De Benedetti offspring.
All sector indices appear to be rising compared to the pre-Covid era. In 2022, the revenues of the sample of companies rose to 10.6 billion, +8.7% compared to 2019. In 2023, according to the institute’s analysts, revenues will grow again by 5.5%. The increase in takings has two components. The first is the so-called affiliated healthcare, i.e. healthcare services carried out by private structures but reimbursed by the Regions with our taxes. This part grows “only” by 1.7%. The rest, i.e. the largest part, is the so-called “out of pocket” or “private-private”. That is, these are visits and interventions entirely paid for by the patients. A figure that will steadily exceed 40 billion from 2022.
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The report certifies that the Meloni government is not the one that “invests the most in health” as the prime minister likes to repeat. Public health spending is falling not only compared to GDP (in Italy it is 6%, compared to 9, 10% in France and Germany), but also in absolute terms. In the first year of government, public spending at current prices decreased by 600 million. It is therefore not surprising that the private component is growing to plug the holes.
Mediobanca writes it frankly: «the long waiting lists induce not only those who are able to bear the costs, but also the subscribers of private insurance and the beneficiaries of company welfare, to go outside the national health service, contributing to the growth in private health spending”.
Already today the weight of private healthcare on the entire expenditure is around 40%, i.e. around 70 billion between subsidized and out of pocket. Tomorrow it will be even worse, Mediobanca predicts, according to which “it is reasonable to expect an increase in the weight of private operators”. In the various specialties, revenues for diagnostics fell (-4.0%) but rehabilitation (+4.1%) and hospital care (+5.7%) rose. The real boom is in the RSAs, which recorded a +14% in 2023 alone. According to analysts, they should return to “full house” in 2024, causing fees for the guests’ families to soar.
