This is what the health reform will cost, according to the director of the Adres

Among the many questions about the health reform presented by the national government, one of the most uncertain, which even led to the government’s first ministerial crisis, is the amount of resources needed to carry out the proposed model. According to the director of Administrator of the Resources of the General Social Security Health Regime (Address), there is no tax gap, contributions will increase and there are investments to be made.

The cost of implementing the new health model in the country proposing the reform, according to the director of Adres, Felix Martinezin a report on financial considerations, would be close to 5,000 billion pesos, if the investments that do not correspond correctly to the insurance system are discounted.

“Apart from these contingent expenditures, which must be made but are not reform expenditures, is 4.7 trillion pesos“said the official, who directs the entity that will be responsible for assuming the administration of all health resources by eliminating intermediation in payment to the IPS which is currently in charge of the EPS.

This was one of the concerns of Minister of Finances, Jose Antonio Ocampowhich were expressed in a document presented to the President Gustavo Petro. This was leaked and raised doubts about the availability of the budget to carry out health reform.

However, as Corcho said and Ocampo ratified, the analyzes of the costs of the new system have been discussed and those that do not correspond to the reform have been discarded. That is, the costs of the sector that the State must assume, but which do not correspond to the insurance.

“What is not in the reform are infrastructure and equipment, the capitalization of the New EPS and the sanitation of public hospitals, the latter dragging a deficit of almost 7,000 billion pesos, it is a problem that already exists, it does not come from the reform and the State must solve it and it is not in the accounts of the reform, “said the director of the Adres, quoted by NCR Radio.

Martinez pointed out that the Ministry of Finance proposed to allocate 1,200 billion pesos for three consecutive years to finance 50% of the deficit. Added to this is the fact that strengthening the new pes It must be carried out independently of the approval of the health reform. He said the same about the formalization of the work of medical personnel, which has already started and is government policy.

“These costs do not mean a fiscal or economic gap,” said the official, who focused the reform costs on the primary health care model, strengthening the public network and health infrastructure. CAPIRS. According to Martínez, in the first year an additional 1.4 billion is needed, in 202 it is reduced to 668 billion and in 2026 only 144 billion is not financed.

Financial needs led to an agreement to maintain user fees and co-payments, which will not be eliminated at this time. However, according to address managerthere are growth projections for the budget they will have to administer the system.

Martínez said that in 2021, 70 billion were registered and that this year it should increase to 80, according to The Republic. With this trend, it is expected that in 10 years the budget of the entity will reach almost 130 billion pesos, growing by almost half a point of GDP.

Furthermore, the director of Adres underlined that the PES they receive about 6.5 trillion pesos for resource management, but they would spend almost half of it. Instead, when that entity becomes the single payer, it would only have to use one trillion.