The fate of the health reform will begin to be written next Tuesday in the first debate in the Seventh Chamber Commission, which is reached with uncertainty because the Conservative, La U and Liberal parties, of the ruling party, warned that they will vote against if they do not include their 133 propositions. But beyond these differences due to the scope of the bill, the struggle would also take place in the purely political, since some believe that the coalition could be in danger after the Government had requested 6 deputy ministers, who represent these groups, to present his resignation.
Some parliamentarians from these parties and from the opposition interpreted the resignations that they supposedly requested in the ministries of Housing, ICT and Transport, due to the ‘rebellion’ to support the health reform as proposed by Minister Carolina Corcho, as pressure from the Government.
W Radio reported last Friday of this decision that the Government would have taken, just one day after the heads of the Conservative, U and Liberal parties met to define what to do after finding that in the paper for the first debate there is a minimum part of the propositions presented jointly by the first two collectivities, as well as the liberals who made by their side.
At the end of the aforementioned meeting, Senator Efraín Cepeda, president of the National Conservative Directorate; Dilian Francisca Toro, director of the U; and the former head of State César Gaviria, head of the Liberal Party, confirmed that their benches will vote against the reform if the 133 proposals they presented a few weeks ago, and which they agreed upon after a dialogue with the President, are not included in the presentation for the first debate. President Petro and directly with Minister Corcho.
Cepeda Sarabia said that “of the total proposals they only accept 27%, they reject 73% and of the priority ones, which are the mixed model, free choice, health and life managers doing audits, they accept only 19 of 95, that is, less than 20%”.
The Senator warned that “if these conditions persist next Tuesday, the Conservative Party will vote negative for the project and the paper filed as a result of the reform presented by the Government.”
The request that the Executive would have made for protocol resignations was allegedly addressed to the Vice Ministers of Housing, representing the Liberal Party, Felipe Arbouin and Aníbal José Pérez.
As well as Carlos Eduardo Enríquez and María Constanza García, Vice Ministers of Transportation on behalf of the Conservative Party; as well as the vice ministers Nohora Mercado and Sergio Octavio Valdés, in the Ministry of ICT, on behalf of the Partido de La U.
As can be seen, the atmosphere for the discussion of the health reform in its first debate is heated, not only because of the differences that exist on key aspects of the articulated by positions found on issues such as insurance, which Minister Corcho insists that be public, while the Conservative, Liberal and La U parties propose that it be mixed (public and private), but because of the request that the Government would have made for the resignation of some deputy ministers at this time.
Therefore, there is expectation for what can happen today and tomorrow, and even the same Tuesday prior to the debate in the Seventh Commission of the House. There are 72 hours in which it is expected that the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, will have to use himself thoroughly and with a high political filigree, on the one hand, to lower tensions with the conservatives, liberals and the U; and on the other to try to convince the parliamentarians of these communities so that they do not condition the vote to what is in the majority paper that is going to be studied, but rather that during the course of the debates they assert the propositions of their parties.
For now, Minister Carolina Corcho wanted to reduce the responsibility of the Government that must respond for including the proposals of the three indicated parties. “The decision at this time is from the Congress of the Republic, it is the one that defines the proposals to the Ministry of Health and what we do is issue technical concepts, but at this moment the decision is in the hands of the Seventh Commission,” she said.
While the Ministers of Transport and ICT accepted that resignations have been requested, but denied that this has to do with the discussion of the health reform.
Transportation Minister Guillermo Reyes told El Espectador that “I have asked officials to resign twice, but not now. And I have done it when I find that adjustments have to be made due to a failure to comply with the missions entrusted to an official ”. He assured that “I have not asked the deputy ministers to resign and, as far as I remember, none of them have told me that they want to leave.”
For her part, the ICT Minister, Sandra Urrutia, confirmed that they requested protocol resignations from Vice Ministers Nohora Mercado and Sergio Octavio Valdés. She, however, said that they are not the only ones and that they are part of an internal adjustment in view of what corresponds to this portfolio in the National Development Plan.
“Actually, it is not only those protocol waivers that were requested. In eight months of this Government we are on the brink of executing the National Development Plan for our projects and the resources from the budget addition are coming,” said Urrutia.
parliamentarians speak
Institutionally, the Conservative, Liberal and La U parties did not make any pronouncement on the alleged episode of the resignation request of various vice ministers who represent them in the Housing, ICT and Transport portfolios.
Conservative representative Luis Eduardo Díaz Mateus told EL NUEVO SIGLO that “the Conservative Party does not encourage blackmail.”
He added that “the position does not change, they can fire all the officials of the Conservative Party. We have to approve is a reform that serves Colombians and that does not put an end to a system. Modifications have to be made, but not how they want to do it. The Party has filed 133 propositions, if they are not included in the debate in the Seventh Commission, they will not be left as a record but will be presented in plenary and the Party vote will be negative”.
For his part, the liberal representative Germán Rogelio Rozo Anís, one of the speaker coordinators for the first debate on the reform, told this newspaper that “there are many issues in common that the political parties and the government have. I think that only one aspect distances us, regarding the activities of the life managers, or the EPS that are known today: if they are administrators or will continue to be insurers of the system. We propose a mixed insurance system”.
He added that we must wait for what will happen in this first debate, where he said that the Government would have 9 votes out of 21 possible, due to the support of the Historic Pact and the Green Alliance, and requires 2 votes for the project to be approved.
“A government agreement with the U or Conservative Party would make it happen or an agreement between the Liberals and the government would also pass the reform,” said Rozo.
He pointed out that even if the Liberal and Conservative parties unite with the Democratic Center and Radical Change, they would bring out a reform tailored to their expectations.
The Parliamentarian added that the aspects of the articles in which there is a coincidence should be analyzed and voted on first. “We liberals agree with the primary care centers, we agree to improve the issue of human talent, with eliminating verticality, with the direct turn.”
With regard to how the vote on the project would be in the first debate, the Government would have added a new vote, which would reach 10, since the liberal representative Dolcey Torres announced that he is in favor of the reform, regardless of the decision against can take his bench. He also resigned as spokesperson for the community in the Chamber.
“I voted for the government of change, and like more than 11 million Colombians I did so believing that this vote would be transformed into reforms aimed at solving the problems that the Colombian political leadership has ignored or has not wanted to solve for years. These are the reforms of change, they are the reforms that Colombia needs”, said the Liberal Parliamentarian.
While in the opposition parties some parliamentarians spoke out criticizing the government because they believe that it is pressuring the favorable vote of the Conservative, Liberal and La U parties for the health reform.
“That is the ‘change’ of this government, pressing and jamming without any fear. They don’t care about the health of Colombians, they care about their ego and winning the confrontation. Health cannot be reduced to a point of honor for the President,” said Senator David Luna, from Cambio Radical.
While Senator Paloma Valencia, from the Democratic Center, pointed out “it is very clear that the coalition of the government of change was made up of posts and bureaucracy. It is very clear that they do not know what dialogue is. It is very clear that they intend to impose by force”.
For his part, Senator Ciro Ramírez, Democratic Center, said that “the great reforms that the country requires in labor, pensions and health are summarized in a small debate on positions. The Government lacks greatness and capacity for agreement. A debate with evidence and with the help of all is necessary for a good reform”.