2023-04-19 12:45:00
Health reform is still in the political pot. Despite the fact that yesterday it was expected that there would be white smoke in Congress, one of the star bills of the Gustavo Petro administration will continue to pass through the legislative offices of the VII Commission since the La U and Conservative parties once again denied the support for the reform of Cork.
The most recent procedure is the solution that the Ethics Commission will have to resolve after some challenges to the representatives of the Commission filed by the former presidential candidate Enrique Gómez Martínez, who through a letter indicated that the congressmen were disqualified, because they many of them have prepaid medical plans.
There the discussion was postponed again and for today, it is expected that the Ethics Commission will rule and give the endorsement to analyze if the representatives can continue with the process; however, the decision can take a period of three days.
At the same time, President Petro spoke from California, United States, where he assured that the text issued corresponds to the key objectives that justify a change. “You cannot change the fundamental axes without which the reform would not make sense. And it is that public money is managed publicly, and stops being the scene of robberies, hospital crises, inefficiency in the health of Colombians”.
The project in terms of votes is waiting for the U and the Conservative party to give or not support for it to happen like this his first debate in the House of Representatives. Now, according to Carlos Arias, a political analyst and professor of Political Communication at the Externado University, whether the reform passes Congress would also depend on whether there is a change in decisions in the Liberal Party.
“Everything depends on the discipline of the Liberal Party, which clearly spoke out against the reform, and that some of its members also declared independence. So, everything will depend on them. Depending on how the vote is taken, it is defined whether César Gaviria would have or would lose power, ”he explains.
And he adds, “although the parties have already said their official vote, it will only be known if those parties have sufficient disciplinary power in their bench when the vote is given.”
Jesús Albrey González, an expert lawyer in health, explains that, as the panorama isa, with the 12 votes against by the big parties, the bill would not be approved. “You have to see what happens after this first debate; It is followed by the plenary in the Chamber, the Committee in the Senate, and the plenary in the Senate”, explains the jurist.
Panorama in Congress
There were 12 votes in favor and 9 against those who approved the request for postponement to respond to the recusals of Enrique Gómez for the representatives of the Chamber. The recusal, which is known as the mechanism that evidences or highlights a reason for the impediment of a congressman to advance a debate, was made directly because they were all affiliated with an EPS.
Martha Alfonso, representative and coordinator of the debate, assured that it is an unusual reason to delay the process. “How are they going to deny us affiliation to an EPS? It’s like denying being alive. It seems to me a mechanism to delay the process.”
The debate will have a document that, according to representatives and speakers of the Commission, has been modified by 40%. Of 156 articles, 60 have been modified and the focus is that the EPS will participate in the referral and counter-referral system for the provision of health services, and that they will be able to continue with insurance functions indefinitely.
We challenge members of the Seventh Commission and here we leave the document that @MafeCarrascal I do not understand. And what do they give to those of the Pact and the greens for voting for it? Is that why they give the DAPRE to the greens? While they try to sink the health system they keep benefits pic.twitter.com/5B1ExceaCG
— Enrique Gomez (@Enrique_GomezM) April 18, 2023
Dilian Francisco Toro, president of the La U Party, reiterated the concerns of the parties so that the Cork Law project passes the filters of Congress. “We are concerned about financial unsustainability. At this time, according to the bill as it is presented, there are no contracts between clinics and care centers, which can lead to two things: 1. that they are not treated, and 2. that to attend, they must invoice with State resources”.
And he adds that it would be a problem similar to what happens with Soat. “Due to the financial difficulty that the State took for Soat, the resources and the structure became unsustainable.”
The discussion is received by the legislative apparatus with three other reforms of the big parties, two reports issued by representatives and speakers (one positive and one negative), an alternate presentation led by the Liberals, and a list of requests by those of La U and the Conservatives.
Among the requests for guarantees in the debate and discussions around the articles, the debate in the Seventh Commission of the House of Representatives was finally postponed.
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#status #project