Healthcare reform sunk in Congress, but reform drive continues at full steam

COLOMBIA - In Brief 03 Apr 2024 by Andres Escobar

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In spite of resorting to all the tricks in the known universe, the government could not stop the sinking of the healthcare reform in Congress, after 8 Senators in the 7th Committee presented a motion to sink it two weeks ago (Ponencia de Arichivo). After many days and weeks in which the government tried to stop the vote for the motion and a lengthy session of more than eight hours on April 3rd, the verdict came through in the Senate’s Social Security Committee: 9 votes in favor of sinking the healthcare bill against 5 in favor of keeping it alive. That is, instead the government flipping the rebellious senator, they were able to gain one more for their cause. With the sinking of the healthcare bill, health insurers (EPS) will continue to be a cornerstone of the health system. So, the most important social reform in president Petro’s agenda is now dead. Or is it? In practice, probably not. Realizing the inevitable outcome in Congress, the government decided to double down on its back-door efforts to push private investors out of the healthcare system, which is really what President Petro has wished for during the last 30 years. How can he go about doing that? By intervening (i.e., taking over) the administration of key EPS, a prerogative of the government to keep healthcare services in place when insurers are faltering, because of financial difficulties, excessive arrears in debt to service providers or excessive complaints from patients. The law gives many powers to the Health Superintendency to intervene, although some previous steps have to be met. In particular, first there has to be a formal warning of the problems found, if they are not corrected then a supervised...