The Head of State confirmed the meeting on Sunday, saying it would include congressmen from all benches, particularly from the Democratic Center, who oppose the proposed changes.

In this sense, the President responded to former President Álvaro Uribe, founder of that political force, who proposed to “adjust without destroying” the country’s health system.

Petro pointed out that Uribe “contradicts himself” by proposing a transition to a mixed preventive health system, something that the government’s program also proposes.

And the fact is that his bench seeks to sink the plan “with which they will only succeed in eliminating the transition in which we agree and will make immediate measures essential,” he said.

He recalled that of the 126 EPS (Health Promoting Entities responsible for the affiliation and registration of the affiliates to the social regularity system in Colombia), only five are still functioning, and most of them want the transition to management companies, and the others went bankrupt or failed to comply with the current basic rules.

In the case of the private pension funds, their capacity to generate savings has already ended and their deficit is beginning, which can only be rectified if the pillar system is created, that is, if the private pension system stops competing with the public one as it is now happening, and rather they complement each other, as proposed in the reform, he commented.

Last year alone, 130,000 private fund contributors switched to Colpensiones with billions of pesos of their savings, but -he warned- without the law, the process will increase in a disorderly manner.

mh/rgh/otf