“The Government is not in a position to favor increases in prepaid medicine, you cannot load that on the people,” said the President of the Nation, Alberto Fernández, referring to the disavowal of the 7% increase in the payment of prepaid medical services that companies in the sector had requested to apply as of February 1. “I’m not going to allow it, that’s why I stopped it; there is no other explanation,” he said, when asked in the interview for a radio station about the meeting he held this week at Government House with Claudio Belocopitt, head of the Union Argentina of Private Health Entities. “I told him that if we have to order the health system, let’s really order.”
In another order, he expressed that “if it were up to us, we would not touch the tariffs, because we are being reborn from the ashes and everything we can do to contain and take care of people’s pockets and favor consumption, production and work, let’s do”.
Targeted rates
“I do not know where it comes from that there is a discussion about rates. Now we know who is who, I know what all registered employees earn, how much money comes in at each address and then I can try to make segmented rates,” said the president .
In this regard, he explained that it would be a “rate for those who are very bad, it is the so-called social rate, and a rate according to their salary (for an intermediate band) and those who can, will pay the full rate.”
In the case of fuels, the YPF case was “punctually”. He remarked, in reference to macrista management, that the state oil company was “left in a catastrophic situation, with a chaotic dollar debt, and since it cannot bear not having increases in gasoline, we have made a correction path so that it does not become an inflationary trigger. ” He indicated that he is “following” this process and that each step is resolved by agreement with the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, since each adjustment “ends up influencing” prices.
Health and intermediation
Alberto Fernández considered that it is necessary to “order the health system.” This is what he raised this week with Belocopitt, in a meeting in which the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, also participated. “We are facing a structural problem that must be reviewed.” The head of the Executive pointed out that he has “a very positive outlook regarding the quality of care in the health system in comparison with other countries.”
“The system basically cares for people, but the discussion is how it is financed,” he pointed out, and then he asked himself “why money is given to private activity so that it can later be given to clinics.” He concluded that “this shows that there is a structural problem in the health system that must be reviewed.” He acknowledged that “there is a problem of costs in prepaid medicine and in social works”, but considered that “the problem that is in sight is that it is a pure intermediation system.”
For this reason, he insisted that “such increases cannot be charged on people.” “When I found out about the 7% increase that would apply since February, I wondered, but how, in December had 10% not already been given? 10 plus 7% in three months? No, this is nonsense, I ordered stop it and make no excuses. “
Belocopitt, who had previously stirred up the ghost that there were those who encouraged “to create a single health system to have complete power”, after the meeting at Government House lowered the decibels and maintained that the President had transmitted “tranquility, in the sense that under no circumstances are they working on a reformulation of the system that leads to nationalization, far from it. ” And he affirmed that, “to the extent possible, we are not going to mix negotiation issues with people’s health care.”
