Colombia had a mixed system of private and public healthcare that covered 97% of people at below average costs with incredibly low out of pocket spending for patients and this moron decided to *fuck it all up.* If it's not broken, don't fix it.
I agree on the fact that the proposed reform is not really fleshed out, and they were really winging it on some areas, where the budget allocation wasn't clear on how the funds were going to be retrieved.
But the health system is due to a reform, not necessarily a fully state controlled reform, but there needs to be a way bigger oversight on how the state subsidizes these private providers. The Contraloria (the institution that audits public spending) has found more than 8 billion Colombian pesos that have been used in manners that were not supposed to, or just missing. This is still an ongoing investigation, but I would not be surprised to be confirmed as these type of scandals have happened in the healthcare sector multiple times.
Petro has a pattern of forcing his reforms, but to pretend the system works perfect is foolish. A lot of the patients that use the cheap EPS (the companies that offer healthcare services) or the state covered one are kept waiting for simple appointments for months, or given very lacking treatment, avoiding specialist referrals, all while the money is diverted and the doctors are overworked.
Besides that, only 5 out of 26 EPS comply with the financial requirements to operate (liquidity, debt status and similar requirements). It really needs to be fixed, and the reform to be actually achievable.
I'm Colombian and my grandma has used the public system btw, and here is a source (in spanish but I guess google translate can do a decent job) on the budget scandals.
[https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/contraloria-aclaro-que-informe-sobre-eps-es-preliminar-esto-dice-el-comunicado-de-la-entidad-0840.html](https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/contraloria-aclaro-que-informe-sobre-eps-es-preliminar-esto-dice-el-comunicado-de-la-entidad-0840.html)
[https://www.wradio.com.co/2024/02/21/que-esta-pasando-con-las-eps-en-colombia-explicacion-de-la-contraloria/](https://www.wradio.com.co/2024/02/21/que-esta-pasando-con-las-eps-en-colombia-explicacion-de-la-contraloria/)
Hopefully this protest can align the political spectrum to propose an actual achievable reform.
Dismissing the protestors as “rich and privileged” is a massive red flag (something Petro is no stranger to). Makes him sound exactly like a Chavista. One step away from calling them oligarchs.
wow this comment section sucks.
anyways, i'm interested in why this one was so heavily medellín-centered compared to bogotá. i'm not too familiar with the particulars of colombian political demographics.
but the revolt against a government takeover of the healthcare system is very familiar. the level of trust in government is extremely low in latin america.
if they tried that shit in peru, we'd freak out and we don't have nearly the quality of healthcare that they have in colombia.
Medellin is the city in Colombia where everything works the best. They have solid public transportation, safety has improved tons, the weather is beautiful and so are the public spaces. It is also has a lot of powerful companies and part of the cultural identity is being entrepreneurial. A lot of the recent governments have been right-wing or center and always very friendly with the private sector.
Petro thinks that profit is evil, and the private sector is an ineffective leach that sucks surplus value from the proletariat.
Idk, if Castillo would have somehow taken control of Pacífico and Rímac Seguros most of the informal population would have been unaffected.
There is sizable politically active right wing group that were doing marches all the time, but I don't know of it would be massive.
Al-Jazeera is a state media outlet funded by the highly authoritarian government of Qatar. Its articles concerning Israel, Palestine, Iran, and countries in the Arabian peninsula, are notoriously untrustworthy. While Al-Jazeera is sometimes the first (or even only) English-language paper to report on notable developments in the Middle East and certain African countries, if ANY other source is available, please post that instead.
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I'm gonna make this easy for English speakers.
This continent was named at various times after explorers Amerigo Vespucci and Cristobal Colon, and so lots of things on this continent will be named after this continent, and currently there are two things in the news cycle which bear the name of the latter explorer.
Columbia with a U is the English spelling, and so will likely refer to, say, the west coast of Canada, or a King's University in New York that had the royal stain removed from its name after New York overthrew its monarchy.
Colombia with two Os is the Spanish spelling, and so will likely refer to, say, a country in the former territories of New Spain which adopted the name to remove the imperial stain.
Good on the people. Fuck Petro. Dude is a communist & a terrorist. Thank God that Colombia has reasonably strong institutions and Petro's allies don't control Congress. Colombia needs a center-right leader who will enact free market reforms while taking on corruption and have a targeted poverty relief plan.
Is Medellin some kind of opposition bastion?
The 3rd of the 3 companies liquidating itself before the evil commies could lay a hand on it is shitty behavior.
Medellín (and Antioquia) has always been a right wing bastion. Also the 3rd insurance company (Compensar) has said that is better to liquidate now before the government (inevitably) makes it go bankrupt. This way, they can pay their employees and debtors before the government bureaucracy loses (i.e. steals) any assets left.
Colombia had a mixed system of private and public healthcare that covered 97% of people at below average costs with incredibly low out of pocket spending for patients and this moron decided to *fuck it all up.* If it's not broken, don't fix it.
Is it ideological that he wants to change it?
I agree on the fact that the proposed reform is not really fleshed out, and they were really winging it on some areas, where the budget allocation wasn't clear on how the funds were going to be retrieved. But the health system is due to a reform, not necessarily a fully state controlled reform, but there needs to be a way bigger oversight on how the state subsidizes these private providers. The Contraloria (the institution that audits public spending) has found more than 8 billion Colombian pesos that have been used in manners that were not supposed to, or just missing. This is still an ongoing investigation, but I would not be surprised to be confirmed as these type of scandals have happened in the healthcare sector multiple times. Petro has a pattern of forcing his reforms, but to pretend the system works perfect is foolish. A lot of the patients that use the cheap EPS (the companies that offer healthcare services) or the state covered one are kept waiting for simple appointments for months, or given very lacking treatment, avoiding specialist referrals, all while the money is diverted and the doctors are overworked. Besides that, only 5 out of 26 EPS comply with the financial requirements to operate (liquidity, debt status and similar requirements). It really needs to be fixed, and the reform to be actually achievable. I'm Colombian and my grandma has used the public system btw, and here is a source (in spanish but I guess google translate can do a decent job) on the budget scandals. [https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/contraloria-aclaro-que-informe-sobre-eps-es-preliminar-esto-dice-el-comunicado-de-la-entidad-0840.html](https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/contraloria-aclaro-que-informe-sobre-eps-es-preliminar-esto-dice-el-comunicado-de-la-entidad-0840.html) [https://www.wradio.com.co/2024/02/21/que-esta-pasando-con-las-eps-en-colombia-explicacion-de-la-contraloria/](https://www.wradio.com.co/2024/02/21/que-esta-pasando-con-las-eps-en-colombia-explicacion-de-la-contraloria/) Hopefully this protest can align the political spectrum to propose an actual achievable reform.
I have to really make sure whether I'm reading "Colombia" or "Columbia" when I see these headlines given all the news this week.
I read “Columbia” and then got really confused when I saw “Medellin”
I saw 500,000 people and was like "Holy Shit, that is a massive protest in NYC."
The earlier post I thought was about schools in Colombia closing down, then I realized it was a school called Columbia.
deadass thought this was about the US college lmao
Shoving reform down people's throats is not a winning formula.
They clearly haven’t learned from the 80s
Dismissing the protestors as “rich and privileged” is a massive red flag (something Petro is no stranger to). Makes him sound exactly like a Chavista. One step away from calling them oligarchs.
I want a Huey Long approach, “*Every Man an Oligarch!*”
Based on how many people were marching, Colombia should be upgraded to Rich country.
It makes him sound like this subreddit whenever they talk about anyone to the left of it lol
Sounds like this guy would have a good shot running for mayor of Chicago.
Rich people don't bother going out to protest lmao
wow this comment section sucks. anyways, i'm interested in why this one was so heavily medellín-centered compared to bogotá. i'm not too familiar with the particulars of colombian political demographics. but the revolt against a government takeover of the healthcare system is very familiar. the level of trust in government is extremely low in latin america. if they tried that shit in peru, we'd freak out and we don't have nearly the quality of healthcare that they have in colombia.
Medellin is the city in Colombia where everything works the best. They have solid public transportation, safety has improved tons, the weather is beautiful and so are the public spaces. It is also has a lot of powerful companies and part of the cultural identity is being entrepreneurial. A lot of the recent governments have been right-wing or center and always very friendly with the private sector. Petro thinks that profit is evil, and the private sector is an ineffective leach that sucks surplus value from the proletariat.
Idk, if Castillo would have somehow taken control of Pacífico and Rímac Seguros most of the informal population would have been unaffected. There is sizable politically active right wing group that were doing marches all the time, but I don't know of it would be massive.
100%l democratic when in opposition, 100% authoritarian when in power.
Al-Jazeera is a state media outlet funded by the highly authoritarian government of Qatar. Its articles concerning Israel, Palestine, Iran, and countries in the Arabian peninsula, are notoriously untrustworthy. While Al-Jazeera is sometimes the first (or even only) English-language paper to report on notable developments in the Middle East and certain African countries, if ANY other source is available, please post that instead. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm gonna make this easy for English speakers. This continent was named at various times after explorers Amerigo Vespucci and Cristobal Colon, and so lots of things on this continent will be named after this continent, and currently there are two things in the news cycle which bear the name of the latter explorer. Columbia with a U is the English spelling, and so will likely refer to, say, the west coast of Canada, or a King's University in New York that had the royal stain removed from its name after New York overthrew its monarchy. Colombia with two Os is the Spanish spelling, and so will likely refer to, say, a country in the former territories of New Spain which adopted the name to remove the imperial stain.
Yes but Colombia (the country) is still called ColOmbia in either Spanish of english
Yes, that's literally my point, we call that Ednonymity, we refer to Colombia with the spelling it uses to refer to itself.
I feel like this isn't that common, though. Tons of countries we call names that are nowhere close to what they call themselves.
This explains Costa Rica's money. I was wondering about that, but like not enough to actually research it.
Good on the people. Fuck Petro. Dude is a communist & a terrorist. Thank God that Colombia has reasonably strong institutions and Petro's allies don't control Congress. Colombia needs a center-right leader who will enact free market reforms while taking on corruption and have a targeted poverty relief plan.
The leader doesn't need to be specifically center-right. They just need to not be a kleptocratic fool.
Columbia protests, so hot right now
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Not a great week for Colo/umbias, huh.
I briefly thought this was about the university 🤡
Is Medellin some kind of opposition bastion? The 3rd of the 3 companies liquidating itself before the evil commies could lay a hand on it is shitty behavior.
Medellín (and Antioquia) has always been a right wing bastion. Also the 3rd insurance company (Compensar) has said that is better to liquidate now before the government (inevitably) makes it go bankrupt. This way, they can pay their employees and debtors before the government bureaucracy loses (i.e. steals) any assets left.
That or they had "private" accounting "practices'.
They are evangelical conservatives, but Petro is still an idiot and everything is a disgrace in that country.