In 2020, health expenditure remained the second largest share of general government expenditure in the EU, second only to social protection. The Czech Republic spends the highest share of its budget on health among EU Member States, totalling 9.2% of its GDP, according to data released by Eurostat. Photo credit: Freepik
Czech Republic, March 21 (BD) – In 2020, health remained as the second largest destination for government funds among EU states after social protection. In 2020, EU governments spent a total of EUR 1,073 billion on healthcare, representing 8.0% of GDP.
The increase is due to both a decrease in nominal GDP and an increase in government expenditure on health (€1 073 billion in 2020 compared with €978 billion in 2019), mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The most important categories of health spending were hospital services (3.4% of GDP), outpatient services (2.5%) and medical products, appliances and equipment (1.2%).
In 2020, the Czech Republic and Austria (both 9.2%) and France (9.0%) recorded the highest spending on healthcare relative to GDP among EU member states. At the other end of the scale were Latvia (4.8%), Poland and Ireland (both 5.4% of GDP).
