Lucia Salinas
07/14/2021 11:05
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 07/14/2021 11:20 AM
The Federal Administrative Litigation judge
Pablo Cayssials
partially
granted
an injunction filed by the prepaid Health companies, where authorization had been requested to apply an increase of 9.77% to its associates. That central proposal has not yet been resolved, but the magistrate
annulled two administrative resolutions
of the Ministry of Health
that had reversed a previous increase of 7% and another of 10%.
With the favorable resolution in hand, it is now expected that the prepaid companies will undertake
a new instance of negotiation with the government, to plan the increases.
The discussion on the adjustment of the prepayments quotas ended up being prosecuted: on June 16, the companies presented an injunction in court to be able to apply an increase of 9.77%, which according to their proposal would be made in two tranches.
Fifteen prepaid medicine companies joined the proposal.
In the midst of the political debate that Cristina Kirchner herself installed on the functioning of the health system, the medicine companies denounced the serious situation that the private health system is going through in Argentina, and presented an urgent precautionary measure before the courts for the delay of quotas, which according to their calculations already exceed 35%.
When arguing the request, they referred to a technical report of October 2020, "taken into account by the Ministry of Health in the resolutions that we have challenged in administrative headquarters; the considerations that appear in the latest resolution of the Ministry, which verbatim indicates, in strong terms, that it
is 'necessary' to take a measure 'immediately and without any delay'
(not several months or years from now, when we achieve a judicial sentence) ".
Among other points cited, it was noted that the same resolution indicated that
the increase is necessary "to" provide genuine resources to the system "
(in the private health system, the only genuine resources are the membership fees)".
When analyzing the situation, Judge Cayssials held that the request to increase the current value of the fees of the Prepaid Medicine Companies by 9.77%
"should be rejected."
However, in his resolution the magistrate also
annulled two administrative resolutions of the Ministry of Health that had annulled two previous increases
.
The first of these is Resolution 1786/20, with which the State did not recognize the corresponding increase "based on the technical report itself and the real costs of the sector", which
was 7%
.
Days later, and after some entities had already notified their affiliates of the increases, "Resolution 1787/20 was issued, which
annulled the previous one
invoking a material error, without accounting or justifying in any way what it would have consisted of. the same".
The judge understood that there were sufficient arguments to
make room for the prepaid claim on the nullity of that second resolution.
It was not the only administrative measure questioned.
The prepayments also referred to Resolution 2987/20, which
was annulled by Resolution 2988/20, the day after it was issued,
"invoking as the sole basis - as mentioned above -
the express decision of the President of the Nation
, contrary to the previous reports that would have advised the authorization of the increases "
"That last resolution referred to an increase of 10%,"
judicial sources
explained to
Clarín
.
Caysssials argued that the power to establish the increases in the value of the quotas of the Prepaid Medicine Companies "constitutes an exclusive spring of the Administrative Power" but that "it is no less true that the Highest Court has held - in established jurisprudence - that this
does not It implies that the exercise of discretionary powers by the administrative body is alien to judicial scrutiny "
.
