COVID SYNDEMIC MANAGEMENT ACCORDING TO THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY: SPANISH CASE AND ITS EFFICIENCY AND LEGITIMACY ANALYSIS

This is a Health Economics review according to the New Political Economy (Law & Economics, Public Choice, Constitutional Economics and Anarcho-capitalism), applied to the case of the Spanish Government interventionism for the COVID syndemic regulation and management. The current socialist Government in Spain, after declaring the state of emergency twice, approved multiple exceptional legal instruments, to attempt the management recentralization during the crisis. This review is offered efficiency and legitimacy analysis, focused in the effects of the new regulation and policies (including the accountability issue) in the progress of the healthcare sector and the citizens' wellbeing during the crisis.

Evaluation of Spanish Health System during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Accountability and Wellbeing Results.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a challenge for health systems. For this reason, it is essential to evaluate the management of health systems in the face of the pandemic, identifying the factors that may contribute to its failure or success. This management is more difficult in decentralized countries, since in them, health competencies are distributed among different levels of government. This is the case in Spain, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic. Therefore, the aim of this article is to evaluate how the Spanish health system has managed the COVID-19 pandemic. Four factors related to health management are analyzed: transparency, communication, reputation and well-being generated. For this purpose, a quantitative analysis is used with the contrast of secondary sources, such as the Merco rankings or survey data from the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Sociological Research Center). The results show that although the flow of communication about the health system increases considerably, such information comes mainly from the media, with a deficit in the transparency of health management. Likewise, although the reputation of the health system increases at the beginning of the pandemic, as it progresses, there is a deterioration in citizen satisfaction with the healthcare management and the services provided, as well as in the well-being generated by them. This study may have implications for decision making by public authorities regarding the different factors of health management.