Federalism as it pertains to Argentina is in essence the way power is distributed between / over the different levels of government. Argentinas federalism with regards to healthcare has 3 levels; national, provincial, and municipal. And within the healthcare system hospitals are either municipal (smaller area) or provincial (bigger area) and this directly relates to how well resourced and funded these hospitals are.

We have visited both a municipal and provincial public hospital and there have been major differences that I have observed. The biggest is the level of quality of each public hospital and this comes directly from funding. The municipal hospital was much nicer and serviced a much smaller area and population, in contrast the provincial hospital was bigger, more run down, and serviced many many more people. Now the only difference (other than those aforementioned) was the level of funding each hospital received.

The municipal hospital we visited was in a much nicer-wealthier area compared to the provincial hospitals bad-poor are. This federalism within the healthcare system leaves things like this to happen where nicer areas are able to retain their taxes into their own healthcare uses while those areas that are economically depressed reflect that in their healthcare systems.

Noah Hillis