In the Venezuelan crisis, several mirages proliferate that can confuse even the most seasoned militant of the Creole vividness. One of those optical illusions is having an insurance policy. How many are insured? Who can have health insurance today? How far does your insurance cover you, if you have it? In the midst of this cocktail of recession, hyperinflation, and penalties, most are likely to be uninsured.
And it is not an isolated perception. Today most can buy a quill bread, but not everyone can count on comprehensive health insurance or ordinary HCM. Venezuela’s own Chamber of Insurers specifies that only 3% of the population has this luxury. We are talking about 1,066,000 people throughout the country, if we take as a reference the population of 32 million projected by the National Institute of Statistics for 2021.
That 3% corresponds only to individuals, people or family groups in Venezuela that can pay policies with coverage that reaches up to 2,000,000 dollars per year or unlimited. It does not include institutional policies such as, for example, that of former deputies from the 2015-2020 period of Parliament who each paid $ 750 for health insurance, with funds from Venezuelan assets stolen abroad.
The curious thing is that this 3%, apparently, is not monopolized by national insurers, but mostly by shell insurers in the Caribbean islands that act outside of national legislation. This situation has the Creole insurers extremely annoying. And it is not for less: when they finally approved to dollarize their coverage they realized that their natural clients were taken from them. New foreign insurers “blew the steak”, as the popular jargon goes.
To counteract the blow, the national insurers activated two strategies: one is to foster the fear of that privileged 3%. How do they do it? Telling him that at any moment illicit foreign insurers will disappear with their churupos. They also sow the desperate doubt that foreign insurance companies will flagrantly default on coverage and there will be no way to claim them because they are outside the country. It is a brutal campaign in the dispute for that affluent 3%. So much so that soon, due to an infodemic, it would not be strange that foreign insurers are perceived almost at the same level of scam of “Hello, I’m Maria.”
While fear takes effect, national insurers are heard incessantly on radio stations talking about “accessible” coverage for some sectors of the population. It is the second ploy. They invite you to buy your policy from $ 150 to $ 2,000 per year, with attractive payment facilities and dazzling coverage. To recover a piece of the lost market, they even offer you coverage for covid treatments.
Of course, with the covid the Venezuelan companies asked to work with limits. They know that an unexpected increase in cases may exceed their financial capacity, already depleted by the crisis. For that reason, the National Superintendency of Insurance Companies approved that insurance can only cover 14 days of intensive care in private health centers and pay up to a maximum of 25,000 per patient with Covid. It was a proposal of the private insurance put into operation.
However, this decision was presented by the so-called “independent press” as an attack by the Government on the right to health of the population.
Venezuela’s own Chamber of Insurers had to step out explaining that the measure seeks to take care of “the financial health” of national insurance, and above all the “correct functioning of the national insurance system.”
That is, they need a limit to avoid the bankruptcy of the sector, in the event of a rebound in patients insured with covid. What happens is that the visceral or viral media? They did not realize that their peculiar coverage was making the reactivation of insurers sick. Cantinflas would say: “Don’t help me so much, compadre.”
Now, what the insurers do not mention are the conditions with which they cover a patient, with or without coronavirus. Not even the vaunted “independent press” (sold abroad as a sort of heroic and miraculous feat) has said anything about it. Maybe it is a line that they cannot pass. However, the nets failed him, as when spitting up.
A Venezuelan surgeon denounced, furious, on his Instagram account, that private insurers defraud that 3% of the population that can pay for health insurance. This doctor is quite an active and quirky influencer, which is why his comment caused an uproar in the upper echelons of luxury still lifes, armored cars and Galipán villas.
That complaint from the doctor, for not receiving his reimbursement on time for the pre-operative exams for a scheduled gastric reflux intervention, opened the doors of a hidden reality. Complaints from users about the scheme currently applied by insurers rained down.
They all pointed out that if you get sick with something minor, even with health insurance, you should pay for the medical treatment at home yourself at the dollar rate of the day.
Then the insurance should give you a refund. The detail is that they pay you in bolivars and when they feel like it. So when you get the refund it becomes salt and water because of hyperinflation. That includes if you become ill with “mild” covid and must treat it at home.
Now, if something serious happens to you, requiring emergency admission, you should get an available bed in a clinic. What the insurers are silent is that your coverage will be consumed in a tris. This rule applies to any pathology, whether or not you have covid.
If your hospitalization is for coronavirus, the prices are taken from a science fiction movie. While an insurance of $ 13,000 can last 12 days of covid treatment, in the cheapest clinic in Caracas a day of intensive therapy can range between 2,000 and 4,000 dollars.
What happens in practice is that those who are insured, the truth is not, because in any scenario (mild or serious, with or without covid) they must always have large sums of money; even more than what they pay to take out private insurance per year.
On the other hand, those who make an effort to make ends meet, have no opportunity to think about a policy for their family members. Because sooner rather than later they will know that insurance at this time does not ensure you cover the basic expenses of a pathology. It is only for 3% of the population; the rest what he does is to be dazzled in the mirage.
And whoever for a moment of rage denounces this situation on the networks, deletes it immediately. Just like that Instagram surgeon did, who surprisingly removed the insurance scam from his account. For what reason would you do it? Nobody knows. Fear is free and gushing, and so is money. Of course, the insurer that he denounced (by the way, with the name of the capital city) kept a cautious silence.
Immediately afterwards, Venezuela’s award-winning “independent” press saturated their audiences with infomercials to victimize the insurance industry, thus leaving behind this false positive, hitherto unknown to many.
For this reason, when they ask me if I have contemplated looking for a supposedly solidarity policy, I keep silent and with an incredulous look I answer to myself:
-I’m not sure.
