2023-06-11 05:27:19
Por Luis Gonzalo Morales S. – [email protected]
If the health insurance reform is approved, the Colombian health system will collapse for the same reasons that today have its British counterpart in this situation, and of which the Colombian proposal is a bad copy. The English scheme is characterized by being publicly controlled, without insurers, with a single large payer and segmented into two large service blocks that act separately.
On the one hand, there are the primary care centers to which the population registers and where they must go in the first instance. If necessary, they are referred to the second block of hospitals, which is independent from the first in its organization, financing, and control. This is essentially the same as that proposed by the reform in Colombia, but it errs by ignoring its problems and the enormous differences between the two countries and health systems.
The English regime has been contracting for 75 years, it has always been mostly public while in Colombia the opposite occurs: 82% is private; he per capita in health it is almost 10 times greater than Colombia, with 62% more hospital beds. It has almost 6 times more health personnel and its territory is 4.6 times smaller than Colombia’s, which, unlike ours, is connected to modern highways, railways, and airports.
Despite this, health in that nation is currently facing one of the worst crises in its history. Its budget, despite having grown by 129% in the last 20 years, suffers each year from a growing deficit estimated in 2022 at $5.5 trillion pesos. It accumulates 7 million patients on waiting lists of up to a year to be treated, which represents 10% of its population, while in Colombia health guardianships are 0.21%. This has forced more and more Britons to resort to private insurance, increasing out-of-pocket spending, while in our country it does not exceed 15%, one of the lowest in the world.
The main problem of the English system lies in separating primary care from hospital care. This means that no one is fully responsible for patient care. Primary care refers more patients than it should due to their pressure and to avoid incurring higher costs due to the way they are financed. This has led to highly complex hospitals being overwhelmed, there are huge waiting lists, and spending has skyrocketed to unsuspected levels out of control.
Copying problematic models from developed countries with infinitely more resources, institutions and human talent than ours lacks, is a big mistake. The United Kingdom is one of the few regions in the world that still has a segmented public health system, which experience has shown is not only inefficient and provides poor service, but also socially, politically and economically unsustainable. His days are numbered.
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#health #collapse #reform
