"Health Reform Turmoil: Gustavo Petro's Journey with Government Coalition Support"

2023-04-22 11:15:49

The journey of the remodeling of health has been full of turmoil. This is one of the essential proposals for the president Gustavo Petro and the support of the coalition of Government. However, the multiple different points and visions have taken him on a roller coaster. Only this past week he was on the verge of sinking although in the end he managed to come out ahead. After disagreements, this text was achieved, on which debates will begin in Congress on Tuesday.

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In fact, this week that the parties passed Liberal, Conservative and ‘la U’ sent a message to the Government that they are still willing to support the health reform when they sank the opposition’s negative statement.

These groups, which are part of the government coalition and which also last Tuesday joined Cambio Radical and the Centro Democrático to vote for the postponement of the discussion while a challenge was resolved, joined with the Historical Pact, the Green Alliance , Commons and Peace seats to sink the negative presentation promoted by the opposition. There were 17 votes against and 4 in favor in the continuation of the first debate.

“I am deeply grateful to the Seventh Commission of the House of Representatives for rejecting the filing of the health reform file. 17 votes to 4 in favor. Excellent. Have a good April 19”, trilled President Gustavo Petro.This would be the ideal number for the Government to obtain the approval of its reform, but for this it must still consolidate majorities.

Commission VII of the House in the debate on health reform.

Photo:

Nestor Gomez. TIME

However, the heads of these three parties, which add up to eight members in Commission VII of the House and a total of 113 congressmen, between representatives and senators, They insist that they will only support the official initiative if their 133 proposals are accepted.

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“The bench decided that until all the articles are included, they will not vote positively,” Dilian Francisca Toro, director of ‘la U’, told this newspaper.
But the differences persist and no consensus has been reached to guarantee the Executive’s approval of the initiative, which was filed more than two months ago but has not yet passed its first debate.

With this text, each of the parties has the open cards to start the first of four debates that this reform must overcome to become law, but this would only be done if sufficient support was achieved so that the articles do not begin to sink. Well, what comes in the discussion is the vote on the articles proposed by the Government.

For now, then, the parties insist that their accompaniment is in the hands of the Government. “I am an optimist and I believe that we are going to be successful, we are going to have the majority of Congress supporting them and with the rhythm that has started, the negative paper was archived. In other words, what reform will there be? We will begin to review the articles, surely next week in much more depth and that gives us time to continue discussing”, assured the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada.

(Also: Health reform: why did Verónica Alcocer go to Congress after postponement?)

However, the tension between Petro and the coalition persists. The president responded to former president César Gaviria, head of the Liberal Party, who attacked the Minister Carolina Corcho and said that “I do not quite understand why that lady is Minister of Health.”

Faced with this, the head of state responded and assured that “this lady is the minister of health because she defends patients, others only defend businesses with people’s lives.

Presentation of the health reform project by Minister Corcho, Petro and Vice President.

Photo:

Press David Racero

In the last few hours Prada recalled that the health reform is one of the most important issues for President Petro. To the point that, he said, on the tour of the United States, the president connected with Colombia after the meetings to continue working on its progress.

Despite everything that has happened, Prada feels optimistic. “This week we managed to get the majority government coalition to act very united, denying the proposal to file, to reject, to collapse, to the reform, which enables, automatically enables us to move on to the study of the positive presentation and the articulated one. Also here I would believe that with the 17 of 21 votes that were expressed in favor of the debate on the Government’s proposal going forward. Clearly, there is a message that the possibility of reform is quite strong, ”he said on Friday.

(In context: How much pressure does Petro put on the coalition with a request for the resignation of vice presidents?)

“The desire for dialogue is what makes me think that we can move forward. We are sitting at the table once again working with the speakers from all the parties, not only from these parties, the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, and the U Party, but also from the Green Party, from the Commons, from the parties that are in the government coalition. In such a way, in such a way that, obviously, the people of the Historical Pact, in such a way that, as long as there is a will and we have the possibility of debating, there will always be a possibility of staying united and working forward”, he concluded.

POLICY