Health Reform: Chamber approves positive report and moves forward in extra sessions

After more than eight hours of discussion, the House of Representatives approved the report with which the Government’s presentation on health reform ended and in this way The proposal was approved and ready to begin the debate on the articles.

The Government managed, at the head of the Ministers of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo and Health, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillothe votes to, first, deny two presentations that requested archiving of the Executive’s proposal and then the support was obtained to approve the positive presentation.

The arguments for and against the reform were made by all political parties. The first to defend the Government’s proposal was representative Martha Alfonso, who He asked to “dismantle” the myths surrounding the Executive’s proposal.

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“We must dismantle the myths and falsehoods that the opposition uses to try to shelve the health reform. Have the EPS been sufferers of the system or have they put a weight on guaranteeing care for the Colombian population? No. It is the State, during the last 30 years the one that has ultimately had to answer for the inefficiencies, the disgrace and the lack of attention to users on the part of the EPS. That is why health must be transformed now,” said the congresswoman who was the speaker of the first reform that was sunk in the Seventh Commission in April 2024.

On the part of the opposition, representative Carolina Arbeláez of Cambio Radical questioned that they “I had to beg for time” to speak in the Plenary Session, which lasted more than 10 hours.

The controversy was served around the presence of several ministers in the House of Representatives in the middle of the discussion of the reform. Even the Minister of Transportation herself, María Constanza García, assured that she came to Congress to “talk to some congressmen so as not to disrupt the quorum.”

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This Tuesday the Chamber approved the Government’s presentation report and in this way it is expected that this Wednesday the discussion of the articles will continue on the second day of extra sessions.