After the last increase that prepaid companies anticipated by email, which will be applied in March, The sector assures that 40% still remains to be recovered of the backlog in 2023 and that will take between twelve and eighteen months.
The clarification was given in dialogue with Ambit compared to the last increase planned for next month. Various private medicine companies have already informed their members that They will update the quota between 23% and 27%. Among the arguments justified in the notifications that this newspaper was able to access, there are “the important devaluation of the weight” that directly affects the inputs used and medicines, the “forced maintenance” of quota values below the inflationthe “permanent addition” of new coverageor the salary agreement signed with the Health Union.
In any case, it is not the first increase of the year. During this month, the marked increase varied between 24% and 30% and in January they rose altogether 40%barely three days after the announcement of the DNU of President Javier Milei, which deregulates the update of the service, previously marked by the Health Cost Index.
Prepaid: increases in 2023 totaled 134%
December general inflation marked 211% annually, while the increase in fees they scored 134%, as indicated by the sector. In turn, the CPI for the Health sector was 227% in the same period, so converge to this percentage will require an additional 40% increase. The intention is to index the fees monthly to inflation, and add “between two and four more points”, depending on the company’s accounts, to recover what they indicate as overdue.
The prepaid companies claim that it is one of the few items “transversal to all the most important increases”: increases in fuel of 145% in a month and a half, increase in medicines of 90% in the last two months of last year and food above 100% after the exchange rate correction of 118%, used for patients who are going through a period of hospitalization.
At the same time, the union announced the payment of a non-remunerative sum of $70,000 for all workers in the sector covered by the collective agreement. This is an “extraordinary bonus” that represents 17.44% of the basic bonus agreed in the nursing collective agreement. For the next salary review, FATSA analyzes an increase of 30% on the December scales, which would have an impact on the next installment.
“We are in a context of absolutely skyrocketing inflation and a complicated macroeconomic context,” alleges a representative of the sector. He also understands that for many members It is an essential service, since the public service maintains great professionals but is “collapsed” and with “low resources”, which is a limitation for whoever decides to cancel the service. Currently, the private health system (provincial social works, prepaid, sanatoriums, community hospitals, PAMI and IOMA) is made up of 33 million usersof which 6 millions They are affiliated with prepaid medicine. Only 1.5 million pay the full fee and 4.5 million They are corporate partners. “We have to look at the global context to see who these increases fully impact,” they justify.
They ask the State for help to finance the PMO
In any case, they assure that updates will be smaller as inflation slows, although they already notice the calls from members for questions about changing plans or disaffiliation. From the sector they request help from the State to finance the benefits to the Mandatory medical plan (PMO), that is, a basic basket of mandatory benefits for all prepaid and social works. “There are extraordinary expensessuch as financing school for a child with a disability, or paying for medication for thousands of dollars through a protection that must be financed, but we need the State to partially take charge,” they warn.
Meanwhile, the National Ombudsman’s Office issued a statement raising concern about the latest increases and their impact on retirees: “we especially point out the situation of older adults who, with insufficient retirement and without the possibility of choosing another alternative performance, are being indirectly forced out of the system”. Finally, they highlight: “It is worth reminding the Prepaid Medicine Companies that there were numerous pronouncements from the Federal Justice, the Superintendency of Health Services and this National Human Rights Institution where it has been said thatQuota increases based on age are arbitrary and that, for this reason, they should be nullified with a refund to the users of the amounts paid.”
Source: Ambito
