The Superintendency of Health Services (SSS) announced that next Monday - or no later than Tuesday - the regulations of the part of DNU 70/23 that enables the
free choice of a social or prepaid work
by workers will be published, as certain ties that govern today become ineffective.
Among the impediments that would be abolished, there are two that are key: the first, the one that forces
workers who want to have the services of a prepaid company to
triangulate contributions with a social work.
The second, which requires workers
to remain in the social work that corresponds to their activity for one year
before agreeing to deregulation.
Both the Government and private medicine companies consider that the new system could result in
a benefit for members
.
The logic, in principle, is that the money that is currently retained by the union social works that act as intermediaries would become "belonging to the contributors" for the benefit of the fee they pay.
The novelty of the regulations was anticipated by
Clarín
this Friday and now sources from the SSS reported that the publication in the Official Gazette of the regulatory decree, next week, will leave enabled the
possibility of choosing
between continuing to make contributions through a work social or do it directly to the selected prepaid.
The news was celebrated by Claudio Belocopitt, president of the Argentine Health Union, although he preferred to be cautious until seeing the letter of the decree.
When consulted by this means, he questioned: “Why do there have to be
intermediaries
if the money can go directly and lower the cost of intermediation?”
That cost is the sum of the employee's contribution plus that of the employer, which in total
is around 8 percent
.
"Why do there have to be intermediaries if the money can go directly and lower the cost of intermediation?" says Belocopitt. Photo: Germán García Adrasti
However, making a linear transfer of that percentage to a
possible reduction in the cost
of the fees paid by beneficiaries is something whose real impact remains to be seen.
Especially in an inflationary context in which prepaid already had increases of
40 percent
in January, at least another 20 percent in February and in which price references are blurred.
Another element that could attack this transfer of the value saved to the price of the quota is that the Government announced that by the same regulatory decree, prepaid medicine companies will be obliged to contribute to the
Solidarity Redistribution Fund
- whose main objective is the reimbursement of money to social works for complex and expensive treatments-
“for the total amount they receive.”
That is to say,
that obligation will increase
.
Finally, a third element to increase the relativization of a possible lowering of rates is, in the new libertarian framework,
what service will be provided
for each differentiated rate.
With the unknown, in the end, whether the absence of intermediaries will result in a
palpable benefit
for the affiliate.
The SSS response does not clear up that doubt.
They stated that “these changes aim to put an end to social works
that are rubber stamps
and that only function as black boxes of politics.
Those that do not provide benefits, but are only in the middle to keep some percentage.”
Héctor Daer and Pablo Moyano during the CGT strike on January 24.
Photo: Marcelo Carroll
This type of social work would be the one really harmed by being on the verge of extinction.
On the other hand, for social works that work with their members and providers, the reality would not be the same.
In fact, contrary to predicting a potential emptying of social security, the
constant increase
in prepaid contributions is already leading to some of the workers leaving and returning to their social work of origin, according to what
union leaders told
Clarín
. .
In any case, these same union members at the same time highlight the problem of a system that will tend to
stop being supportive
and become increasingly
unequal
, with young, healthy, high-paid workers contributing to prepaid companies, while those of Lower incomes - lower contributions - and older people will probably be those who remain within the universe of social works.
Belocopitt cut short that argument, stating that this is not something that has to do with the DNU: “The deregulation of the social works system has existed since Menemism.
Everything that happens and happens has been happening for 25 years.
There is no such thing as thinking that social works
are going to be defunded
because prepaid ones are going to compete in the social security segment.
If that existed, it would already work like this today.”
The other issue that does not escape the unionists is that in the background of this official decision appears the
political and ideological struggle
of President Javier Milei with the unions, which deepened even more after the national strike of January 24 and the judicialization of the labor reform that the Government imposes through the DNU itself.
P.S.