After the national government ordered a group of private medicine companies to roll back prices of the installments to December and adjust them to inflation, Swiss Medical, owned by Claudio Belocopitt, announced that the decrease in the next invoice will be 22.22%.
The change was announced to the members, as reported by Clarín, and is very similar to the percentage that Osde announced last week, 22%.
This data fuels the suspicion of a possible “cartelization” between private medicine companies. That is, the increases in the main prepaid were similar and, now, the discounts are too.
According to what was compiled by the same medium, Swiss Medical is sending letters to affiliates with the following text: “It is very important for us to convey to you that the increases made in these months are the result of reducing, in part, the great gap generated between the increase in our cost structure and the quotas authorized by the competent authority until December 2023. This gap was accentuated exponentially in the last quarter of 2023, in which a cumulative difference of 62.6% ended up being generated between inflation and prepaid medicine fees.”
Prepaid: Government intervention
As reported by the Government in a statement last week, it was established that “the values of the fees of the medical-care health plans to be collected may not exceed the following calculation: the fee of the medical-care health plan for the month of December of 2023 multiplied by (1 + the percentage variation between the general level Consumer Price Index with national coverage prepared by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses in force at the time of the corresponding billing, and the same Index corresponding to December 2023)” .
The measure clarifies that, in the case of clients registered after December 2023, the adjustment must be made based on a plan similar to the one contracted.
Milei Government: prepaid companies that must adjust their fees
In principle, the measure covered seven providers: Galen, British Hospital, German Hospital, Medifé, Swiss Medical, Omint and Osde.
According to data from the National Commission for the Defense of Competition, the increases in these prepaid payments in January had been between 38% and 40.5%. It is estimated that in all cases the decrease would be a similar percentage.
It was later learned that another 13 prepaid plans would have to do so, although it is still unknown when. This is a new presentation by legislators from the Civic Coalition (CC), where they appear Medicus, ACA, Accord, Sancor, Italiano, Güemes Foundation, Health Prevention, Federated Mutual, Hierarchical Mutual, Essential Medicine and Pasteur.
Although it does not mean that in this second case the time is the same, it is necessary to remember that three months passed between the first presentation of the CC and the Government’s resolution.
