The Lazio Region will abolish the regional ticket on health from 1 January 2017. Governor Nicola Zingaretti announced it on Friday morning. The regional ticket, which was introduced in 2008 when the health deficit exceeded 1,6 billion, concerned three services: MRIs and Tac (15 euros); outpatient specialist (4 euros) and physiokinesitherapy (5 euros).
Services whose cost, from 1 January, will no longer have to be added to the national ticket for specialist services (36,10 euros) and to the fixed fee (10 euros): the savings for Lazio citizens will be around 20 million euros. The junta's next step will be a provision on waiting lists. «We want to make it clear that the phase of destruction of Lazio health care has ended and that now another is opening – underlines Zingaretti -. We are increasing hiring and investments in the health and hospital network and after three years we have achieved what seemed like a dream: from 1 January we will cancel regional health tickets ». "That tax - he adds - was introduced eight years ago when Lazio was a police station, and it was a serious blow to equality and access to the healthcare system".
