How much does a day in a Spanish public hospital cost the health system?

How to get close to this number

Estimate from staffing. A hospital bed requires a share of nursing, medical, catering, cleaning and administrative staff around the clock, plus the building and equipment. Dividing a ward's daily running cost by its bed count gives a figure in the hundreds of euros.

The comparison that matters is international: the same bed-day in a private American hospital is quoted at several times this. Health system costs differ by a factor of several between rich countries for outcomes that are broadly similar, and the difference is in prices rather than in quantity of care.

The value-for-money point in the explanation is the one worth carrying: spending around ten and a half percent of national output on health while ranking among the top few countries for life expectancy. Health spending and health outcomes correlate far more weakly than people assume, and the countries at the top of the outcome table are frequently not the ones at the top of the spending table.