The Nation's Health

 There’s the story to frighten the sick and the elderly – the one about the free social health system being wound up in favour of a capital-friendly insurance-run arrangement like they have in the USA.

The scary story from America goes something like ‘A new study from academic researchers found that 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies were tied to medical issues —either because of high costs for care or time out of work. An estimated 530,000 families turn to bankruptcy each year because of medical issues and bills’.

Here in Europe, at least, whatever treatment you get will be (could be) available for free. You might prefer a private doctor, and avoid a long wait, and have a comfy private room, but the national health is available for one and all.

Sort of.

In Europe, we love our national health service. Indeed, the cynical Brexiteers even won their rebellion on the back of a message painted on a red bus. No one wants to lose their free health cover, even as the lobbyists are agitating for profit-run health solutions – for those who can pay for it.

Most of us in Spain have a health card (a treasured thing as one gets older) and we hope that it will continue to work, and that there will be someone to attend to us at the local consulta, the health centre.

But the vultures are circling.

‘A storm is devastating the public health system in Europe and in Spain. Economic interests are eating away at it against the evidence about its importance for the population’ says a Spanish editorial adding, ‘Powerful business groups intend to manage with business criteria what is one of the pillars of world stability: universal health care for the entire population’. Well, money talks; and politicians listen.

Already some regions of Spain are budgeting less per inhabitant on public health issues than others, with Andalucía spending the least (1,546€ per person per year) against the Basque Country’s 2,012€.

Indeed, both Madrid and Andalucía have recently seen major protests over the drop in standards in the regional health services and a collapse in primary health. How long will we have to wait for an appointment… or for an operation?

Conservative lobbyists are always hard at work trying to persuade politicians to adopt some (inevitably capitalist) policy. However, facing their baleful influence is the most powerful lobby of all: the voter.

The Toga Wars

There’s now a war going on in the Cortes. As someone said last week – ‘you tried it with the tricornios (a reference to the Guardia Civil Tejero’s attempted coup in 1981) now you are trying again with togas (the Constitutional Court’s favoured accoutrement)’. This time, though, things are going better for those nostalgic for the Old Order. A vote last week in the Cortes had agreed to (finally) switch two judges out of the Constitutional Court for two fresh ones, thus breaking the four-year-overdue control on that body by the conservatives. The Senate would ratify the vote today, (Thursday). 

But the Constitutional Court – in an unprecedented move – has ordered the Senate not to vote on this issue. El País calls it ‘El Pleno de Sabotaje’, saying ‘The conservative majority of the Constitutional Court (TC) places Spain before an unprecedented interference in the legislative power’. The judges refuse to be properly and constitutionally (!) sacked. From Europa Press here: ‘The PSOE censors that the judges Trevijano and Narváez (the two due to be removed) vote to reject their own challenge in the TC’.  

El Huff Post here: ‘Sánchez asks the public for "serenity" and promises to put an end to the blockade of the Judiciary. He blames the PP for this institutional crisis by trying to retain "a power that citizens have not endorsed at the polls"’ (with video).  

The Guardian says here: ‘Spanish judges block draft legislation that would affect their own court. Claims of ‘a coup against democracy’ as conservative judges freeze passage of government measures’. 

For some balance, here’s the opinion of El Mundo: ‘The decision of the Constitutional Court to suspend the express judicial reform of the Government that the Senate was going to approve in its plenary session this Thursday is proof that the rule of law prevails. The Executive has tightened the strings to the extreme, but the TC has acted in accordance with the law and its powers…’.  

Politico says ‘…The court ruling does not affect other changes that Congress approved as part of the penal code reform. They include the elimination of the crime of sedition and reductions of sanctions for misuse of public funds in certain cases. The opposition has accused the government of pandering to Catalan nationalists with both changes’. (Odd that the PP didn’t try and stop this part of the reform too).

The Spanish parliament is elected democratically; the Constitutional Court, not so much. As Baltasar Garzón noted last summer: “It is clear that Justice is being used in Spain to bring about the fall of a president”.

 

Tipping in Spain

A waiter once approached me in a club in Washington DC and held out a $100 dollar bill. ‘Your father’, he said, ‘gave me this as a tip’. My father was, you see, a bit worse for the weather after a few glasses of bourbon (and after all, all dollar bills look the same). I snatched the hundred dollars from the honest server and gave him a five-dollar bill instead.

Let that be a lesson for him.

Tipping in the USA is necessary because the wait-staff only get as little as $2.13 an hour (a preposterous amount, and apparently frozen since 1991) and they must make up the rest of their take-home earnings with tips. These are generally accepted as running at 15 to 20%. Even the credit card receipt asks you how much to add. Everyone over there seems happy enough to pay this.

In Spain, where we foreigners often wonder about the intricacies of tipping, the rules are different. To start with, the staff should be getting 10€ an hour from the owner, plus social security and time off for the odd smoke around the back. Many of the employees evidently are listed as part-time by the employer even if they’re not. Since tipping is a voluntary act rather than an institution, we sometimes do, and then again, we sometimes don’t. After all, apart from taking a photo of us on our smartphone, a waiter's main job is to stop us going into the kitchen and getting our own plate of chicken and rice off the cook.

The cheaper places don’t seem to show much interest since they’ll pass you the change from their hand to yours along with a friendly hasta la próxima – see you soon. Others, a bit more on the ball, will return your change on a small saucer. You are left with the options of either leaving it bare as you get up to go or else decorated with a bit of calderilla – pocket change. It’s never going to be more than five per cent or so.

No wait, I’m being told by an upmarket Spanish magazine that one should leave ten per cent, unless they’ve already added a gratuity to the bill. Fancy places huh!

Of course, some waiters make a decent amount of cash on the side – and no doubt neglect to declare it to the tax-man.

An article at Wiki regarding tipping in Spain says that ‘In 2007 the Minister of Economy, Pedro Solbes, blamed excessive tipping for the increase in the inflation rate’. Quite a claim!

But let us drop into a bar in Madrid for a beer and a sardine. There, a new campaign has been launched by the conservative regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to encourage tipping – as (we read), she doesn’t want to raise the minimum wage. There’s a TV campaign to encourage the practice – a few extra coins could help the waitress pay for piano lessons for Elenita, or maybe English classes for Roberto… This remarkable commercial, called #YoDejoPropina, can be found at YouTube.

Useful if you mistakenly leave them a hundred euros…