Madrid, Murcia, and Catalonia at the bottom of Spain in health spending

For the sixth consecutive year, the Community of Madrid has budgeted the lowest per capita healthcare spending for 2025 among the autonomous communities, at 1,482.25 euros, a figure that contrasts with the highest-ranking region, Asturias, which has planned to allocate 2,422.28 euros per person for healthcare in the upcoming year. The Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health (Fadsp) has conducted an analysis of healthcare spending by autonomous communities per capita over the past six years, during which the national average in Spain has increased from 1,343.95 euros (2020) to 1,944.47 euros (2025).

The study analyzes how the budget extensions of Aragon, Murcia, Valencia, and Catalonia are being handled, as these regions have not yet approved their budgets for the next fiscal year. It calculates that healthcare spending in Spain per capita will increase by 72.34 euros in 2025, a 1.04% rise compared to the current year. “This growth is insufficient to meet the needs of the healthcare system (bearing in mind that the projected inflation for 2025 is 2.8%),” evaluates the Fadsp. The organization emphasizes that Spain “will continue to lag behind the EU average and significantly behind the countries in the eurozone.”

Next to Madrid, at the bottom of the list, we find Murcia (1,511.18 euros per inhabitant), Catalonia (1,515.99), and Valencia (1,586.38). Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, and La Rioja also fall below the Spanish average. (It is worth noting that in the last fiscal year, healthcare spending in Catalonia exceeded the initially budgeted 12,000 million by almost 25%, an excess that occurs in similar proportions every year).

The communities that have budgeted the highest per capita spending after Asturias are the Basque Country (2,290.32), Extremadura (2,288.44), and Navarra (2,219.43). Also above the average are Castilla y León, Cantabria, Aragón, Canarias, Galicia, and the Balearic Islands. According to the Fadsp, the differences are excessive: “940.02 per inhabitant between the autonomous community that allocates the most (Asturias) and the one that budgets the least (Madrid). Obviously, such a wide variability makes it difficult to provide the same health services, in quantity and/or quality, and breaks the necessary equity and cohesion among the autonomous communities.”

In view of the trend towards restraint, the Federation advocates “a budgetary effort to strengthen public health.” At the same time, it calls for the development of targeted funding mechanisms to reduce excessive disparities and ensure the right to health, as well as “a special reinforcement of primary care, which is impossible to achieve with the budgets presented.”