President Rodrigo Chaves Addresses Demographic Change and Healthcare Challenges in Costa Rica

The President of the Republic, Rodrigo Chaves, changed his speech and now no longer says that the Costa Rican Social Security Fund “is bankrupt” but rather that health insurance is “actuarially bankrupt” due to demographic change.

Following a question from a journalist during this Wednesday’s press conference about the aging of the population and the absence of public policies that encourage people to have more children, Chaves said that “demographic change is an enormous macroeconomic variable” that puts “pressure” on the pension and health system.

In pensions, he said, “those who work today pay to pay those who are retired,” which is a problem as there are more pensioners and fewer active workers.

Furthermore, he said, “currently our social security system has economic problems” because, according to what he said, “demographic change means that health insurance is actuarially bankrupt.”

According to the president, the “older” the population, the higher the costs of medical care, more hospital visits and longer stays, which makes the service more expensive. “We are concerned,” he said and added that “you have seen the heroic work that Mrs. Marta Eugenia is doing in cleaning up the Fund.”

The president ruled out implementing policies in favor of a higher birth rate because “as far as I know, no country in the world has been able to increase the birth rate with public policies above the population replacement rate.”

This question, Chaves said, is one that “economists around the world spend analyzing every day and there is no magic sauce, there is no secret sauce, what we are doing is what the economic literature and the comparative experience of the countries say. , that what we can do we are doing well.”