Rajoy at odds with Madrid on copayment
Deputy Prime Minister: “This is not the government’s model.”
The government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is seeking to distance itself from the one-euro prescription drug fee about to be implemented by the regional premier of Madrid, Ignacio González. Both Madrid and the central government are run by the center-right Popular Party (PP).
"This is not the government's model," Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said Friday. "Our model is a revenue-based model." She added that once the details of Madrid's initiative are known, "we will analyze if it is constitutional."
Madrid would be the second region to adopt the one-euro fee after Catalonia already did so. Rajoy's administration has threatened to take Catalan authorities all the way to the Constitutional Court over the issue.
Sáenz de Santamaría also said that the executive is trying "for the first time to protect unemployed people without jobless benefits," so that they avoid co-payment for medicines.
