“The ultimate election year” is how Time Magazine heralded 2024 in its new year coverage. 64 countries have or will be going to the polls this year, from the world’s largest democracy, India, to Kiribati, one of the smallest.

Europe has been particularly active, with Belgium going to the polls in June, the European elections in the same month, and the UK holding a general election in early July, bracketed by the two rounds of the French legislative elections. There has been other activity too, including a right wing coalition finally finding agreement in the Netherlands.

Healthcare has regularly come out as one of the most pressing issues for voters in polls.

In the UK, health is the second biggest priority for voters going into next Thursday’s election.

More than two-thirds of French voters when polled in 2022 indicated that healthcare would be critical in choosing who they would cast their vote for.

And healthcare came out as the number one priority for Dutch voters ahead of last year’s elections.

Strangely, however, electoral candidates across the continent have been reluctant to engage too publicly with healthcare policy.

As quoted in HBI’s coverage of the new Dutch coalition, healthcare expert Rune Aresvik noted the lack of detailed attention paid to healthcare policy within the new government’s coalition agreement, with much of the focus on immigration and housing services. 

The UK, meanwhile, has seen the major parties almost studiously avoid discussing their policies for the NHS and the private sector in anything close to the detail of elections past. This is despite half of UK voters wanting to see promises of an increase in healthcare spending.

Meanwhile, Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party  — the favourites to win France’s imminent parliamentary elections — found themselves just over a week from polling and without anything by way of a completed healthcare policy.

Why the disconnect between public need and appetite, and political engagement?

There are a couple of possible answers that come to mind.

Firstly, health and care policy is complicated. Healthcare solutions are not always easy to explain, while funding, insurance, and payment models are themselves complex. In an era where populist politics is growing, it may simply be that discussing important-but-complicated areas of public life such as healthcare provision, is a losing strategy.

Another possibility is that it perhaps is indicative of a lack of government confidence in being able to deliver political wins at a time when workforce and demographic issues are requiring tough choices by policymakers and providers alike?

Could there be another reason for Europe’s candidate governments and opposition parties to be avoiding detailed electoral conversations around health and care policies? I would love to hear your thoughts, feel free to submit them at: editorial@healthcarebusinessinternational.com.