Mady
New member
They presented a bill to re-regulate prepaid payments - Infobae
Source:
Presentaron un proyecto de ley para volver a regular las prepagas
Aseguran que la suba de cuotas en los últimos meses luego de la liberación de precios no se tradujo en un aumento de la calidad del servicio ni fomentó la competencia en el mercado.
www.infobae.com
March 05, 2024
They assure that the increase in quotas in recent months after the liberalization of prices did not translate into an increase in the quality of the service nor did it encourage competition in the market.
Decree 70/23 released the prices of prepaid medicine fees and from that moment on they had an increase of 40% in January, 30% in February and 23% in March on average. Rodrigo Nespolo/ pool ARGRA
National Deputy Martin Tetaz presented a bill for Prepaid Medicine after the increases in recent months, as a result of the liberalization of prices through the DNU of President Javier Milei last December.
The legislator explained: “It is up to the State to regulate prepaid payments. Once the rates were deregulated, we did not observe that the doctors were better, that the care was superior, and that there was more frequency of appointments. The only thing that can be observed is a very marked increase in benefit of prepaid companies, therefore it is necessary that the article of the DNU be repealed and it be brought back to December.”
Since the publication of decree 70/23, fees increased by 40% in January, 30% in February and 23% in March on average.
Martín Tetaz, national deputy
“This situation has brought about increases of up to 60% in several cases in one month since the entry into force of the DNU. The current scenario of recession and inflation that society has been going through in recent years means that members of these health services cannot afford the current fees with exorbitant increases and in many cases they accessed justice to request that the company to rescind the increases," was indicated in the foundations of the project presented by Tetaz, which has the signature of deputies Danya Tavela, Marcela Antola, Melina Giorgi, Gerardo Cipolini, Gabriela Brouwer De Koning, Mariela Coletta, Carla Carrizo and Pedro Galimberti
“The decision made regarding the deregulation of prepaid medicine companies does not seem to have improved the quality of service provision, nor that doctors are better paid, even generating inconveniences in the quality of life of citizens affiliated with these institutions,” they argue.
“In addition, since it is an oligopolistic market, competition is scarce and does not guarantee the establishment of an affordable price and the quality of the provision of a good service. And because these are health issues, being a market with oligopolistic characteristics, the State cannot do without the regulation of rates, which is why we recommend the repeal of the aforementioned articles ," they add.
In dialogue with Infobae , Tetaz said: “In the economic theory that we learn and teach in college and in the experience of all liberal countries in the world, prepaid medicine and medications are regulated, and the criterion is to tend to the price be the same as the marginal cost. We seek to ensure that prices are equal to the marginal costs of service provision. We are not seeking to freeze prices as Kirchnerism did. That was a terrible regulation. But just because we have suffered terrible regulation for many years does not mean that it is best to eliminate all types of regulation.”
It is worth mentioning that, according to the latest presentation of registers to the Superintendence of Health Services (May 2022), 6,796,690 people are affiliated with prepaid medicine companies. Approximately 40% of these affiliates are direct members, while the other 60% come from the derivation of contributions via corporate plans or deregulation of social works. This represents that just over 14.77% of the population has private medical coverage.
From the sector they justify the increases in the increase in costs and in that the fees had been far behind with respect to the inflation of recent years.
“The costs went for the elevator and the updates (of the fees) for the stairs, which generated a huge deterioration,” said Claudio Belocopitt , the owner of Swiss Medical and president of the Argentine Health Union (UAS).
Deregulation of social works: will prepaid fees increase?
On the other hand, the national government deregulated social works and workers will be able to freely choose between a social or prepaid work. In turn, beneficiaries will no longer have to remain obligatory for a year in the social work of their activity when entering a new job.“I completely adhere to the Government's idea that people can choose the derivation of their contributions. The deregulation of Milei is good, but they created a new tax that makes prepaid payments unviable ,” Belocopitt said. This is a 20% contribution that companies must contribute to the Solidarity Redistribution Fund (FSR) within the framework of the new regulations.
For the prepaid medicine entities grouped in the UAS, this new 20% contribution will increase the costs of coverage in a health system that "is already extremely stressed" and they maintain that it will be difficult for providers to absorb and that they will have to make the services more expensive. rates to deal with it.
