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Private Health Insurance companies analyze whether they abide by the Government's resolution and defend the increases - Infobae
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Las empresas de medicina prepaga analizan si acatan la resolución del Gobierno y defienden los aumentos
El anuncio oficial tomó por sorpresa al sector, que todavía no sabe si va a retrotraer los precios como exige el Gobierno. ¿Cuánto subieron los planes desde diciembre?
www.infobae.com
April 17, 2024
The official announcement took the sector by surprise, which still does not know if it will lower prices as the Government demands. How much have plans risen since December?
By Matias Barberia
In the last four months the quotas gained between 137% and 159%, according to different calculations (Illustrative Image Infobae)
The prepaid medicine sector received like a splash of cold water the Government's order to roll back part of the strong increases that they applied since last December, when DNU 70 on Deregulation of the Economy released prices. The official injunction forces these increases to be limited to the pace of inflation, which would imply cuts of between 25% and 33% to their current prices depending on whether private parties or officials are consulted. The decision of Javier Milei's administration triggered the first reactions among businessmen, who, although they do not deny the way in which costs for their clients grew, argue that the adjustments are in line with their needs in terms of costs and, even so, They do not compare with the movements that other variables of the economy had.
In the sector, as a first reaction, they analyze whether they are obliged to comply with the official order or if they can confront it at a legal level. “There is still nothing resolved. All options are being analyzed ,” they told this medium.
The question that this conflict brings up, which the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo , classified as a “war against the middle class” initiated by health funders, is how much the increases were. There are different numbers depending on the source used.
The real value of the prepaid medicine fee returned to its historical maximum, reached in 2017. At that time it had taken 19 months to reach that level, now it took just 4
Figures circulating in a working document shared by companies in the sector admit average increases of 35.3% in the January quota, 24.9% in February, 20% in March and 17% in April. This is an end-to-end increase, the result of price liberalization, of the 137% average in the sector .
In the Government , meanwhile, they discuss that figure. Commerce sources estimated that the increases are around 151% throughout the sector.
To seek third-party estimates, meanwhile, Infobae turned to the Argentine Institute of Fiscal Analysis (IARAF), led by economist Nadin Argañaraz . The consulting firm, which in one of its reports focused on a longer-term analysis of the sector's prices, cut corners and took the increases of a single prepaid payment to compare them with the rest of the variables in the sector and the economy. She opted for a stable plan from Omint whose prices can be traced back to 2013 for the report.
That plan that IARAF used as a reference jumped 159% since prices were released.
All these variations that are being considered (137%, 151% or 159% in four months) compare with an accumulated variation in the consumer price index of 90% from December to the end of March. It is clear that, in line with the official idea of rearranging relative prices, prepaid installments recovered ground in the face of inflation.
That is why both the arguments of the sector and the analysis of the IARAF try to put these increases in context in a longer period, to know how much they needed to recover the quotas assuming - as is the consensus - that their rates were overdue.
The document circulating among companies argues that the recovery of income is minimal, if the nominal nature of the Argentine economy and, more specifically, the cost variations suffered by the sector are taken into account.
For example , in the sector they argue that since January 1 and thanks to the increases applied, they achieved an increase of 24.4% in real terms , that is, in comparison with inflation. This is, they say, an 80% lower increase than the cost of living in the same period, 147% lower than the increase in food prices in that period and 154% below the increase in costs in general.
In a longer period, for example, they point out that the Basic Food Basket rose 37,837%, medicines 19,599% and, for example, nursing salaries 9,994% since the beginning of 2012. In the same period, the Superintendence of Health authorized increases to the quotas for 7.945%, well below all the references mentioned.
In 2017, when prepaid installments were worth the same as today in real terms, they were equivalent to 17% of the average recorded salary. Today, they take 30% of the salary
The IARAF analysis, for its part, provides another perspective that can help explain the reason for the conflict . Based on the same reference plan, Argañaraz analyzes the price movement from 2013 to the present. And the first discovery he arrives at is that, in real terms, the quota is at the maximum value of the series. It is a record for the period analyzed , very close to the previous record, with which it practically ties and which was reached in October 2017 .
Between 2017 and 2024 there are coincidences and differences, beyond the fact that the same real level was reached in the value of the monthly installments. In both cases, the incumbent Government was trying to get quotas to catch up after years of delays. The difference is that during the presidency of Mauricio Macri the process to reach the recomposition of their rates took 19 months. In this case, the increase occurred in just four months.
But in addition to being abrupt, the increase competed with income levels of families that had at least difficult months.
“In our analysis, one can clearly see that the historical maximum relative price was recovered. Now when you look at it from the salary side, since 18 you began to have inflationary jumps that were not accompanied by salary jumps, the incidence of the quota on income was growing. While in 2017, the last time it reached the maximum quota level in real terms, that cost was equivalent to 17% of the average salary of registered workers, now that cost is equivalent to 30% of the average salary,” said Argañaraz.
