President Gustavo Petrothrough his Twitter account, spoke out against a letter written by some of the members of his cabinet, in which they asked the president to make an exhaustive review of the health reform document.
According to the file, in which the Ministers of Agriculture, Finance and Education, as well as the director of the National Planning Departmentexpressed their disagreement on various points, the reform is in danger of being unfeasible in the future.
(You may be interested in: Health minister defends the reform: “fiscal impact is low”).
Given this, the president argued that the health reform seeks to be proactive in terms of structural changes to the current system created by Law 100, which, according to Petro, has been heavily worn.
He also took the opportunity to upload a new table of costs and sources of income of what would be the health reformafter having spoken with members of his cabinet.
(Further: Petro responds to the objections of his ministers about health reform).
The letter published by the media by some of my ministers about the health reform is true.
It was discussed for hours and days, by myself and by the technical teams that were designated for it. I made a meeting with the EPS for it.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) February 27, 2023
The president was in charge of explaining that, after discussing this issue with officials who have been critical of the reform, yielded different results in the table, as well as different tables of fiscal impact.
“The initial table has costs that are independent of the reform and should not have been included such as payment of services to foreigners, labor formalization or payment of hospital debt.Petro said on Twitter.
(We recommend: Could the New EPS collapse with its role in the reform?).
These costs must be paid with or without reform and are not due to it.
The updated table that the press did not present and which, due to intellectual honesty, should have been presented to them by the person who delivered the document that is now a draft is the following: pic.twitter.com/REnMas0INy
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) February 27, 2023
The accounts illustrated there showed that the expenses for the reform to become a reality reach the 114 billion pesos for the next 10 years. This amount takes into account the direct and contingent costs of the reform.
This means that the cost that the National Government would assume it would be equivalent to six tax reforms of 2022, which sought a collection of $20 billion annuallythis with the aim of paying for all the changes and corrections proposed by the president.
(Also read: Several Petro ministers show their objections to the health reform).
“The health project presented to Congress presents the essential foundations of our proposal presented in the electoral campaign to the entire Colombian society and has my full support.”, added the first president.
Precisely, the year in which the Government would assume the greatest expenditure, according to this projection, would be in the year 2033, in which a total expenditure of $12.79 trillion was estimated.
(Besides: Functions of primary care raised in the health reform).
However, according to the trills of Petro, the sources of collection would allow to have the guaranteed resources, thus reaching a total of $123.16 billion.
BRIEFCASE
