Gustavo Petro orders powerful Colombian health operator to intervene

Bogota. The traditional elites of Colombia raised their loud alarms again after the government of President Gustavo Petro ordered the intervention of one of the most powerful companies in the health sector, considered the jewel in the crown of the country’s bankers.

Arguing that its accounts are not clear and that the discontent of its users is increasing, the health provider Sanitas was left in the hands of an auditor appointed by the Health Superintendence to – as stated – prevent the company from having to be liquidated.

With almost 6 million members, Sanitas is the second largest company in the sector, after Nueva Eps, also intervened and currently operated by the Government, in what the opposition and employers’ unions do not hesitate to describe as a process of “nationalization.” ” of public services, in the best style of what former president Hugo Chávez did in neighboring Venezuela.

As usually happens every time Petro announces decisions, the first to speak out about the intervention in Sanitas was former President Álvaro Uribe, who described the measure as “authoritarian”: “By hook or by crook it seems to be the official design for citizens to be left without good health insurers and in the end only statism, bureaucratism and politicking will be available. “Who in the private sector will invest again to provide health services?” asked the former president (2002-2010).

And as always happens when Uribe questions him, Petro did not take long to respond through his favorite medium, the messages from , being paid with public money, that is, they will grow,” assured the head of state.

After noon, the public’s attention moved to the Senate of the Republic, in whose seventh committee a proposal was put to a vote to shelve the bill presented more than a year ago by the government in order to turn around the sector, through a bold reform whose axis was the elimination of financial intermediaries, the implementation of an ambitious model of preventive medicine and the expansion of service coverage to marginal areas of the periphery, in rural and urban areas.

Considered a defeat for the government, the collapse of this initiative – according to most local analysts – forces the president to look for new paths to prevent his package of social reforms from sinking in the unstable labyrinths of the legislative power.

According to what has been seen so far in the proceedings of the Senate and the House of Representatives, Petro’s other two flagship reforms – pension and labor – could suffer the same bad fate as the health initiative since the legislative majorities of the opposition are appealing to the old trick of preventing a decision-making quorum in debates.

The fight for health has brought to the surface a new topic of discussion that further irritates the traditional sectors of business and politics: the intention to promote a Constituent Assembly expressed by Petro a couple of weeks ago, a sign that the head of The State will not sit back while it sees how the current institutional framework blocks the way for reforms that have been postponed for decades.