The Budget Bill 2024: repercussions on health spending and resources for regions and local authorities

The Budget Manoeuvre for 2024 is in the home stretch. The draft of the document that will soon be sent for discussion in Parliament has been circulating over the past few days. There are 91 articles that altogether configure a plurality of interventions, generally small in size, in which the extension of the cut in social security contributions stands out. The other macro chapters concern healthcare, pensions, PA, families and the spending review. On the whole, this is a prudent budget manoeuvre, financed with extra-deficits and expenditure cuts, and which moves within a problematic public finance and economic framework, which has prevented some decisions from becoming structural, such as the cut in the tax wedge or the reduction in IRPEF rates, which are therefore extended or initiated but for the time being maintain a temporary nature.

We will postpone to the IRPET Report at the end of the year the in-depth analysis of the Budget manoeuvre, its redistributive effects on households and businesses and those on growth, when the final version approved by Parliament will be available. Here we focus our attention on the articles that affect the public spending resources of territorial authorities. In particular, we are interested in the repercussions that the Budget Manoeuvre determines on the overall volumes of resources for healthcare spending and other current and capital expenditure of Regions, Provinces, Municipalities and metropolitan cities.