In a speech, President Gustavo Petro insisted on his health care reform: "The EPSs will continue to go bankrupt, because I'm not going to save them."

For nearly an hour, President Gustavo Petro addressed the Comptroller's Office report, which outlined the financial crisis of Nueva EPS. The president defended the administration's ongoing efforts. At the end of his address, he emphasized his health care reform, currently pending before the Senate's Seventh Committee.

In light of the serious findings of the Comptroller's Office and allegations that the government's intervention has exacerbated the crisis at Nueva EPS, the president focused on discussing the deficiencies with which the entity was acquired. He spoke of an alleged liability of 5 billion that had not been reported and of double accounting, one for the Ministry of Health and another for the Health Superintendency, supposedly to avoid an intervention.

Along these lines, he criticized the EPS's demand for an increase in the Capita Payment Unit (UPC) since 2023 and asserted that this request for the missing amounts for that year would be to pay a liability from years ago that they hadn't been reporting. He spoke about the owners of Nueva EPS and again directed his comments at Enrique Vargas Lleras, brother of former Vice President Germán Vargas Lleras and a member of the board of directors.

Although he focused on the Nueva EPS case, the president used it to level his criticism at the entire healthcare system. He stated that EPS debts have recently increased; one-third of that debt has been paid, but the majority of the resources reportedly came from the state.

He added that this high debt is the reason why so many private health institutions have closed recently. However, he acknowledged that some of the interventions his government has made have not brought solutions because the interveners they appointed reportedly continued with bad practices.

The speech served as a prelude to the debate on health care reform, which is expected to resume this Tuesday in the Senate's Seventh Committee. He insisted on his position that EPSs should not handle public funds. "They should no longer be intermediaries. It never worked; it wasn't the system. They increasingly tried to save it, and it kept getting worse," Petro stated.

In contrast, he highlighted his proposal for a preventive health system and asserted that this approach has allowed them to be one of the governments that has invested the most in health infrastructure.

Petro asserted that his efforts have resulted in fewer deaths among children between the ages of 0 and 5, a figure he has emphasized in various speeches. He also emphasized that the number of people with chronic illnesses has decreased, according to his figures. "We can present the catastrophe caused by the theft by business owners, but we can also show how we have improved," he stated.

In this regard, he criticized the fact that his healthcare reform is shelved in the Senate's Seventh Committee. "They want to maintain a Frankenstein of thieving businessmen, who have helped create a contracting cartel. The EPS cannot handle public funds; we have proposed that they manage the transition from the primary system to a more complex one, as well as the audits," he stated.

At the closing session, he directly addressed the members of the Senate's Seventh Committee to advocate for the bill, which would collapse if it isn't debated before June 20 of next year. "You can decide, and while you decide, the EPSs will continue to go under, because I'm not going to save them," he concluded.

Juan Sebastian Lombo Delgado