When buying medicine in most countries, one typically has to pay for it, even if they have insurance.
How did this change in protocol regarding medicine effect Wales' economy afterwards?
Gross Domestic Product, or GDP for short, is the total market value of all goods and services purchased in a certain timeframe within a country. It can also be calculated by adding up all the salaries for all working people.
Basic Information:
The data in this graph shows that the GDP was on an upwards trend before and mostly after the abolishment of prescription charges in Wales. This means that the amount of money going in and out of the country was not impacted by this event.
The unemployment rate is the amount of people who have not had a job for 30 or more days who are actively seeking one. The higher the precent, the more people who are without jobs.
Basic Information:
The data in this graph shows that the unemployment rate was severely impacted by the abolishment of prescription payments. This could be due to the lack of need for people to track down the amount of people paying for prescription medicine.
The budget for healthcare is the amount of money the Welsh government sets aside to put towards providing health services in the country.
Basic Information:
The data in this graph shows that the budget for healthcare went up after the abolishment of prescription charges, likely due to not having to pay people to collect overdue payments for prescriptions.
Drug crime is defined by The Crown Prosecution Service as to "possess, supply and produce controlled drugs. It is also illegal to import or export drugs, or to allow your premises to be used for drug production." The drug crime rate is how many drug crime offenses are recorded.
Basic Information:
The data in this graph shows that the number of reported drug offenses after prescription drugs became free spiked.
The poverty rate is the amount of people who fall into the category of "poverty," also known as people making less than 60% of the median UK household income. The higher the precent, the more people who are within poverty.
Basic Information:
The data in this graph shows that the 2007 abolishment of prescription charges did not significantly impact the poverty rate.
Although in the "About Wales" section, we discussed what was being imported and exported. However, it is important for us to know how much money Wales was making via exports within the event period.
The data in this graph shows that, because the Welsh government spent less money on hiring people to calculate the price of medicine and who was paying or not, they had more money to put into producing higher quality goods to ship out.