Although the discussion of the health reform, which the Government filed yesterday, will begin next March in ordinary sessions, President Gustavo Petro is already seeking to put it on the public agenda. For this reason, he invited citizens to defend this and other reforms that he will present in the coming days.
President Petro’s intention in this sense had its “initial quota” yesterday, as he invited the citizens to the Plaza de Armas of the Palacio de Nariño to the symbolic filing of the reform.
The president received the text of the bill, of 152 articles, from representatives of civil society, medical associations, trade union organizations and health unions.
In this way, the uncertainty in the system actors, health unions, political parties, benches, congressmen and ordinary Colombians, who for more than four months complained because the entire initiative was not known, and in those conditions the debate took place all this time.
“If there is a universal right to health, total peace is possible. If there are guaranteed rights, total peace is possible and Colombia can become a world power of life,” said the head of state shortly before Minister Corcho filed the bill before Congress.
Petro Urrego highlighted that the proposed system is based on preventive health through the Primary Care Center (CAP), which “is not a house, a simple facility where some people attend”, but spaces of approximately 25 thousand people, each, distributed throughout the national territory.
President Petro stressed that this bill is added to others presented by the national government, such as the tax reform, which is already law, and pointed out that it demonstrated that “it was possible to have a fairer taxation and tax regime.” .
He also referred to the reforms that the Government will present to Congress in other areas, such as pensions and labor, and indicated that they seek to improve the daily lives of all Colombians.
Regarding the health reform, the president also said that “we want the doctor to be able to go anywhere in the national territory and care for anyone”, and that “the inhabitants can be permanently cared for by a health team of professionals”, anywhere in the country.
In addition, “a pregnant woman can be worthy of medical care and treatment, and that she does not die, as is currently happening, simply because there was no one who could take her blood pressure, because there was no one to protect her life and that of her child.” ”.
The president warned that “what we do not want is for health itself to be organized as a market (…) The health system that arises from this law is a planned system, with a strong state presence, but mixed because it allows the presence private”.
He added that “in the end what these reforms bring and concretize is a different society, a more democratic society, a society that is of universal rights, as the National Constitution thinks, and not of exclusions, as reality has made us live” .
Finally, he stated that with the reform “there will be no more clients in public health.”
He pointed out that “now we deliver the bill that will be one of the pillars to transform Colombia into a power of life. Presidents of Congress, you now have the floor”.
It may interest you: ABC of health reform
political sectors
In it Democratic Centerthe opposition party, rejected the reform because they consider that provisions such as suppressing the EPS, in the role of insurers, endangers a system that has been built in the last 30 years.
the senator dove valencia He said that “the minister insists on ending the EPS. She now she discovered that her model will take time, but she does not measure that if they announce that the EPS are leaving, there are no incentives to continue. You have them without resources and they are going to break them”.
while the senator Maria Fernanda Cabalfrom the Democratic Center, said that “this Wednesday, February 15, we are going to march against the absurd decisions of the anarchist government of Gustavo Petro, such as those of Minister Corcho, who seeks to burst the health system, putting the lives of Colombians at risk ”.
On his side, the uribista senator Cyrus Ramirez It was asked if “for the implementation of the APIRS primary health care model, will the municipalities and departments be prepared? How long will it take to adapt such a size of infrastructure? Will we return to the health centers with the brown ambulance?
The Boyacá parliamentarian added that “goodbye the EPS, they will go on to fulfill administrative functions in the background. The insurance system is finished. They will be partially taken into account in municipalities and departments”.
while the senator Carlos Fernando Motoa, from Cambio Radical, a party declared independent, said that “the publicized health reform of the Petro government has been filed. I note its nature as a statutory law that requires processing by first commissions, qualified majorities and four debates in ordinary sessions before June. Will 3 months be enough time?
governing coalition
The president of the Seventh Committee of the Chamber, Agmeth Escaf, of the Historical Pact, a legislative cell in which the project must render its first debate, said that “we are ready, the great health reform is coming so that everyone has guaranteed access to health and it ceases to be a business. Health is a right and we are going to give everything for that right”.
For his part, Senator Alejandro Vega, of the Liberal Party, warned that “the health reform must be processed as statutory law. Therefore, it should not be discussed in extraordinary sessions.
It added that “Article 152 of the Constitution and the Constitutional Court clearly establish that if a law touches on minimal conceptual and structural elements of a fundamental right and intends to regulate it fully, it is before a statutory law.”
Vega also said that “the country is waiting for us to give this discussion and in-depth debate on this reform in Congress and we cannot subject it to uncertainty due to a procedural defect that can be avoided.”
On her side, the representative for the Green Alliance, Catherine Juvinao, agreed that “the first debate to take place on the health reform: Are we before an ordinary bill or, as we warned last week, statutory? Expert response so far: statutory. Be careful not to compromise its constitutionality in the future, Minister of Health”.