In this way, the president responded to a congresswoman who opposes the project and who assures that in the health reform “the only thing they care about is to end the EPS”.

In Colombia, health care insurance is almost entirely in the hands of private Health Promoting Entities (EPS).

According to Petro, the second objective of the initiative proposed by his government and currently being debated in the House of Representatives of Congress (bicameral) is to guarantee that public resources are not lost and are transferred directly to hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices.

The third is that health personnel will have labor guarantees; the fourth is that the current EPSs will concentrate on setting up their preventive health jurisdictions and on the referral and counter-referral of their affiliates, and for this management service -he said- they will be paid.

The sixth objective is for the public hospital network to be strengthened in human and technological terms throughout the country and the seventh is for higher public education in health sciences to be expanded throughout the national territory, he added.

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