Leaked health reform documents are ‘old and controversial’, Interior Minister Alfonso Prada says

On Sunday February 26, the Change magazine revealed a leaked document from the ministerial portfolio that revealed concerns about the health reform, especially in tax matters; the doubts were so serious that – according to this means of communication – the Colombian President Gustavo Petro indicated that if the letter and its annexes were known the bill would sink.

Recently, the reaction of Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Pradaabout the leak of this document, and showed his little concern about it, since he assures that the concerns are old and had already been mentioned at the time.

With a trill, the head of the Ministry of the Interior indicated that the simple “exaggeration and drama” about the leaked document health reform only escapes serious debate.

“The exaggeration and drama at the end is beyond debate. Let’s see: they declare premature deaths, they pontificate on processes that have not been developed, theyThey see the rules at ease, and they celebrate but hide that they are old and controversial documents. Calm down, the debate has only just begun”, Alfonso Parada pointed this out on his official Twitter account.

It should be noted that Adolfo Prada is one of the ministers who continues to support President Gustavo Petro and the Minister of Health, Carolina Corcho, while those who have expressed their objections to the reform have been Alejandro Gaviria, Minister of Education; Jose Antonio Ocampo, Minister of Finance; there Minister of Agriculture, Cecilia López; and the Director of the National Planning Department (DNP), Jorge Iván González.

On February 26, the Change magazine published a document on the objections to health reform which was presented by the four members and which is composed of 18 pages.

The most marked differences between the vision of the Minister of Health and of President Petro with the members of the cabinet are that: on the one hand, some consider that the system should be mixed, since according to media data the reform would cost an average of 90 billion pesos and the State does not have the means to support health expenditure at 100%, added to the fact that the ministers who presented the document consider that the PES and that like other politicians, the ministers and the director of the National Planning Directorate they noted that the bill should have been introduced as statutory law.

“We consider it important to advance the process of territorialization and the establishment of monopolies in certain territories. However, competition must be maintained where conditions permit (for example: in cities),” read one of the fragments of the document, which according to a government source could not be revealed, because during the meeting where finally, he gave his full support to Carolina Corcho warned: “If this document is disclosed, the reform will fall.”

Currently, the discussion of the health reform document is in the hands of the House of Representatives: Presidency of the Republic

With regard to those of written or ordinary law, the government has relied on the fact that it is a reform of Law 100 of 1993, which is ordinary, so it should not be considered as a transformation of the conception of law as such. However, Ocampo, Gaviria, Lopez and González They pointed out that when a fundamental right was affected, it should have been treated as such and transmitted by law.

“In the opinion of these portfolios, the rule established in Article 28 ignores this mandate and to this extent it could suffer from a flaw of unconstitutionality,” the officials wrote in the document. However, as is known, the difference is that as an ordinary law, there is less debate and less waiting for its approval.

Similarly, with regard to the budget, the Minister maintains that it is more viable for the State to bear all health expenses than for the system to be mixed, since she considers that the current model is not sustainable in the time and that the current debts of the EPS are recoverable to a large extent for what it will bring to the project. However, there is concern because several points are missing from the budget, such as: the abolition of co-payments, the elimination of co-payments, invalidity and maternity and paternity leave and the unification of premiums for contributory and subsidized schemes.