Guido Carelli Lynch
01/17/2021 16:01
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 01/17/2021 4:01 PM
The Government is advancing in the search for an urgent solution for the representatives of the private health system, who affirm that - without increases and without state aid - they will not be able to cover January salaries in the middle of the pandemic.
President
Alberto Fernández
and Chief of Staff
Santiago Cafiero
received the providers in recent days and are preparing a menu of options for the short and medium term.
The leadership of the CGT, meanwhile, will go to the Instituto Patria, which defends the need for greater
integration of the health system
, a proposal that is viewed with distrust by trade unionists and by the owners of prepaid, who fear an advance on a
$ 800 billion cash
.
The financial situation of the private system is delicate, according to all its actors.
The different links in the chain - the funders (prepaid and social works) and the providers (clinics, laboratories, emergency services, among others) - made it known that the deadline is February 1, when they must face the January salaries.
They warn that, with increases suspended, without ATP or tax breaks, the
health system is on the verge of collapse.
All in the midst of the rising second wave of coronavirus.
After receiving
Claudio Belocopitt
, owner of Swiss Medical, who is also the head of the Private Health Union (UAS) -which groups together funders and providers-, the President and the Government turned their attention to the latter.
Fernández and Cafiero received the leadership of the
Argentine Federation of Healthcare Providers
(FAPS) on January 7 and promised to convene "a work table."
President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner, when they led an event in La Plata in mid-December.
There she asked to reform the health system.
Presidency photo.
With that perspective, last Tuesday, the FAPS representatives,
Mario Lugones
and
José Sánchez,
met with Cafiero;
the Ministers of Health,
Ginés González García
;
Work,
Claudio Moroni
;
the superintendent of Health services,
Eugenio Zanarini
;
and Deputy Chief of Cabinet
Cecilia Todesca
.
There, concrete measures were evaluated to alleviate the sector, after the Government canceled tools in that direction on December 31 to reduce the deficit in line with the IMF's claim.
According to those close to several of the participants, it is almost a fact that the President will reinstate
Decree 300/2020
by which he reduced and / or eliminated taxes for the Health sectors, such as
employer contributions
and aliquots of bank credits and debits.
After discontinuing the ATP, through which the State took charge of half the salary of company employees, the Ministry of Labor would include the Health companies that request it in the
REPRO II productive recovery program
, which finances a part of wages.
Funders point out that this tool would leave out many companies in the sector.
The providers, on the other hand, maintain that it incorporates others, such as ambulances, that were outside the ATP Salud regime.
The lenders also demand mechanisms to set
automatic increases that do not affect "the pocket of the people"
- as the President claims - in an inflationary framework.
They imagine that if the state-owned
PAMI
- one of the main contractors and funders - increases its resources if pensions grow, a direct amount should go directly to companies in the sector.
The Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Nicolás Kreplak, Cristina's battering ram to reform the health system.
Photo Mauricio Nievas.
From the UAS they let it transpire that they sent to the "highest level of the Government" a folder with proposals to work on expenditures. They demand, for the medium term, to work on the
VAT refund
to which private schools access and the
reduction of income Brutes
in the provinces. For now they prefer to silence a battery of immediate proposals. The
President would receive Belocopitt again
in the next few days. Lenders and funders agree that Fernández will sign a decree in the next few days.
“We are
evaluating measures to be able to accompany the sector
given its importance in the framework of the pandemic.
We do not have definitions, but there are several measures under analysis.
If we are thinking of helping them, it is because they deserve it, ”acknowledged officials who participated in the negotiations.
The tension during the last weeks was underground, after it erupted when
the President annulled
on December 30 a resolution published hours before in the Official Gazette, which authorized a
7 percent
increase
for prepaid from February and suggested an increase the same amount for providers.
In the Government they want to prevent
inflation from
continuing to escalate in the middle of the election year.
In the UAS they speak of a
54 percent mismatch
- due to the lack of increases and dollarized inputs - and they believe that Kirchnerism wants the State to absorb the infrastructure and private patients as happened with the AFJP and ANSES.
The President assured them that this would not happen, but failed to reassure them.
Much less, with its subsequent criticism in the media.
The position of the CGT
The CGT raised
its
flag
on Monday after a summit of its directive commission and through an official statement.
"Inalienable rights such as health must be defended without political parties so that each citizen can continue to access in due time and form a system that is a model in the world," they said.
Antonio Caló
, the leader of the UOM was the hardest.
The trade unionists
had already demanded before the President
increases in contributions from 9 to 11 percent for social and monotax projects.
The State helped them with transfers in 2020 for $ 3.0 billion to plug the hole.
The funders of the health system - the union and prepaid social works, in particular -
do not believe that the vice president's wish is anything other than to advance on the private sector
.
“We have to go to an integrated national health system between public, private and social works that optimizes resources.
The pandemic gave us the opportunity to reformulate the health system in record time, but it is necessary to make a different effort ”, the vice president had said on December 18 at the ceremony of the Frente de Todos in La Plata.
In Kirchnerism, they took note of the suspicion of the CGT, an ally of the ruling party.
As reported by Ámbito Financiero, the Buenos Aires Deputy Minister of Health
Nicolás Kreplak
summoned the trade unionists to the Patria Institute to explain the scope of the reform that he envisions and whose guidelines he allowed to transcend in some internal documents that circulated.
In Christianity, they affirm that
no one thinks of keeping either the prepaid or the social works
, but rather optimizing the use.
"The trade unionists are going to be able to continue washing in peace," provoked an official.
The head of the UOM, Antonio Caló, in dialogue with the press on January 11.
Reject the changes Cristina asks for.
Distrust and contempt is mutual.
Kreplak insisted this Saturday on the need for reform
.
"A reform of the health system is important. I do not know if the moment is now, but we cannot delay it any longer (...) All of us who are working in the health system know that a reform must be carried out. The discussion is how We do it (...) The reform has to be with all the actors, ”he told AM 750.
The Buenos Aires deputy minister and his superior,
Daniel Gollán
, also received the providers last week.
In the City and in the opposition, for now, they remain outside the negotiations.
All the protagonists recognize that the problems are dragging.
Since 2002, the country has been in a health emergency
.
The actors are almost always the same: trade unionists, businessmen and officials.
In the DNU that declared the emergency of the system 19 years ago, in addition to the signature of former president
Eduardo Duhalde
, there was that of the then and current Minister of Health,
Ginés González García
.
