From Nadef to the 2023 Budget Law

12 November 20221 year ago babelfish

What is contained in the first Update of the Economic and Finance Document of the Meloni government. The intervention of Stefano Biasioli, Pietro Gonella and Michele Poerio

With patience, we took the trouble to carefully read the NADEF launched by the Council of Ministers on 11/4/2022. One thing was immediately evident: it is not an original product because it follows 98% of the one launched by the Draghi government on 09/28/22.

In about 3 weeks, Meloni was unable to do anything but incorporate Draghi's text. Not only that, but Giorgetti, now Minister of the Economy, of the Draghi Government was a convinced sponsor, both in Italy and in Europe. That said, we limit ourselves to pointing out some critical issues of the text (read on 9/11) and passed in the Senate and in the House in 48 hours. As always in Italy, the numbers relating to income, expenditure and government debt can be considered relatively plausible.

However, what can be seen is the following:
1. social spending (% of GDP) will be around 21.5% in the years 2023-2024-2025, in line with 2022 spending;
2. “real” pension expenditure will be around 16% of GDP (16.1-16.5%) in the next three years, equal to +0.9 compared to the 2022 percentage;
3. social welfare expenditure will go from 5.87% of GDP (year 2022) to 5.07% in year 2025.
These numbers are important because they testify to the EU that our "real" pension is in line with the average of the 27 EU countries and that, therefore, this government (unlike what has been done by the 3 previous governments!) Will not have to go to Europe hat in hand nor will it have to yield to possible requests from the EU relating to the cut in social spending.
As regards HEALTHCARE, the NADEF of the Meloni government also accepts that the chronic underfunding of Public Health continues, whose expenditure (in% of GDP) will drop from 7.04 (2022) to 6.61 (2023) to 6.20 ( 2024) and finally to 6.01% (2025).
Any comment in this regard is completely useless.
It is in fact evident that if the total healthcare expenditure drops from about 134 billion in 2022 to about 129 billion in 2024-2025, significant changes in the Public Health Organization will not be possible, both in terms of personnel and in terms of structures (! !!!!).
"So?" the reader will say … Then one thing is certain. Within a few weeks the MELONI GOVERNMENT will have to write the BUDGET LAW 2023. We expect that there will be some SIGNIFICANT CHANGES compared to the current NADEF, while taking into account that the Meloni government should last the entire legislature. But a signal must be given, already from 2023 … ..
Among these changes, some are in principle, not expensive, while others are expensive, but they are essential to avoid the degradation of the NHS. We list them, modestly but with meticulousness.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE: CONCRETE PROPOSALS

1) The RESOURCES for the NHS MUST BE at least 8% of GDP, as per the EU average, for the next 4 years and must not decrease, as foreseen by the Draghi government and the NADEF 4/11/22;
2) YOU MUST RESPECT the contractual timing (!!!), which is fundamental for the entire staff;
3) WE MUST FIGHT AGAINST THE LACK of DOCTORS BY LIBERALIZING ACCESS TO THE UNIVERSITY, with blocks in the 2nd and 4th year;
4) THE OPERATING STANDARDS of the NHS STAFF MUST BE REDEFINED, for each specialty, adapting the specialty schools to them, starting with those related to the emergency (PS – Cardiology – NCH – Nephro-dialysis – Infectious – Pulmonology);
5) TERRITORIAL ASSISTANCE MUST BE MODIFIED, starting first with the necessary staff and then with the new structures. On related costs We have conducted a specific study.
6) THE WORKING RELATIONSHIP of the GP MUST BE TRANSFORMED with an obligatory choice between:
– full time (36 hours)
-defined time (20 hours) with Freelance Profession
– conventional report (18 hours) but with time controls;
7) THE TRAINING SCHOOLS of the GP MUST BE REVIEWED.

SOCIAL SECURITY: CONCRETE PROPOSALS

1) NET SEPARATION, in the INPS budget, between SOCIAL SECURITY ITEMS and WELFARE ITEMS (pursuant to Article 37 of Law 88/1999!) In order to clarify, once and for all, to the EU that, in Italy, pure social security expenditure is under control while the welfare one is linked to migrants, unemployed, unemployed;
2) REPRESENT to the EU that the 2021 EXPENDITURE for WELFARE in ITALY is equal to 16.6% of GDP of which:
PURE PREVIDENTIAL = 12.9% of GDP
– WELFARE = 3.7% of GDP (54th Censis Report);
3) REPRESENT to the EU that PURE SOCIAL SECURITY is linked to contributions paid by individuals, while ASSISTANCE is FINANCED by TAXES;
4) LAUNCH NEW RULES for RETIREMENT EXIT (stop at Fornero and flexibility in exit);
5) NO to the "CONTRIBUTION RECALCULATION" if the pension situations characterized by a clear gap between contributions paid and pension received are not first defined / clarified (categories: pensions with 19 years and 6 months of contributions, craftsmen, soldiers …). AS REGARDS the MANAGEMENT, the contribution recalculation would lead to an increase in the pensions accrued by pensioners with 40 contributory years (eg ex INPDAP…);
6) NO to FURTHER COMPULSORY CONTRIBUTIONS on PUBLIC PENSIONS MORE THAN 5 TIMES the MINIMUM INPS, pensions already heavily cut for 9 years out of 12! Not only that, but these are subjects who are heavily taxed, due to the impossibility of evading and due to the current rules on personal income tax;
7) IMPLEMENTATION of an INDIVIDUAL ASSISTANCE REGISTER with a DATABASE of ALL the ASSISTANCE VOICES, to be declined by INDIVIDUAL CODE (CF) and by FAMILY UNIT. In this way, the IRREGULARITIES could be discovered (as done with the citizenship income), with obvious savings in spending and punishment of the "crafty" *
* This task could be entrusted to the CNEL, with the collaboration of INPS, ISTAT, the Ministry of Economy (for personal income tax data). We remind you that the CNEL already has the archive of all contracts, as a means of comparison between contract and contract, in the same area and in different areas of work.

IN CONCLUSION

Do not be told that all these proposals / ideas cannot be contained in the budget law 2023. We already hear the critics … "Beautiful ideas but difficult to implement as times and methods".
We are aware of this. But, who gets off to a good start is half the battle. For this reason we will carefully look for, in the next budget law, CONCRETE TRACKS of A CHANGE with respect to the previous budget laws. Agree, there are further obstacles: war, inflation, energy shortage. But the "awakening of Italy" should also take place by aiming at a radical revision of the type of spending in health and welfare, with new rules, new controls, new skills.
This, for now, we ask Meloni and C. Not a mere accounting exercise that does not take into account what happened in health care, in the public sector, in the inability to count separately assistance and social security. With waste likely to be similar to that produced by the “happy” application of citizenship income.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/dalla-nadef-alla-legge-di-bilancio-2023/ on Sat, 12 Nov 2022 08:02:44 +0000.