2024-03-14 04:30:00
The day of the frenetic debate on the Health reform does not end. Although yesterday it was finally known that nine senators joined the file of the initiative proposed by the Government – which was to undergo its third debate in the Seventh Senate Commission – the president of the Commission, Martha Peralta, decided not to call yet this Wednesday, the 13th of March to session in Congress, so the votes could not be made official.
There are two big questions: The first is why, despite the fact that the archiving proposal already has eight signatures, and nine senators in total announced their intention to sink the Government’s proposal, the Seventh Commission has not called a meeting this Thursday, so the reform does not officially sink. The president of that corporation, Martha Peralta, confirmed to this newspaper that she will do so only until after Easter, which will give the Government enormous room for negotiation.
The second is where the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, is. Yesterday Velasco did not appear in Congress, despite the fact that there were two debates on a motion of censure at the same time against the Minister of Health, Guillermo Jaramillo, and against the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez. For the first time, the Minister of the Interior did not appear in Congress in the midst of the political earthquake that began early in the morning when it was learned that Senator Norma Hurtado was joining the group of congressmen for the file, which achieved the signature of 8 names, 14 in total, and it was evident that the reform was foundering.
President Gustavo Petro said in a press conference that “the Government began to act” when it was learned that the reform had no further paths and also pointed out between the lines that the system would collapse “because Congress knows that there has to be a reform”.
The absence of today’s call to vote means that the congressmen will not yet be able to make their vote official in the archival sense, even though their names are already public and almost all of them gave statements to the press. These are: Honorio Henríquez, Alirio Barrera, Lorena Ríos Cuellar, Nadia Blel Scaff, Miguel Ángel Pinto, Berenice Bedoya, José Alfredo Marín, Norma Hurtado, and Ana Paola Agudelo. The latter, from the Mira Party, joined at the end of Tuesday night after several criticisms because the position of that movement is that neither the file nor the reform solve the problems of the health system in Colombia.
Presidency sources consulted by EL COLOMBIANO said that they do not know where Velasco is, and the minister did not answer the chats with the same question early in the morning.
The communications office of Senator Peralta, of the Historical Pact, said that the Presidency of the Commission did not call a meeting today because “there is a plenary session in the morning.” However, this could give the Government a break and a lifeline that lasts until next week because on Thursdays and Fridays, congressmen generally do not meet in debates, but rather attend the regions to do work with the communities.
The Government would be doing “everything” to avoid shelving the reform that is at the heart of the President, according to a source told this newspaper. But with the nine votes against it, if they remain in place, it would be very difficult to change the reality of the sinking.
Those who celebrate
On the other hand, after the setback of the reform, a group of congressmen, who discussed this initiative in their first two debates, celebrated this decision.
“The health reform is about to sink, thanks to the vote of Senator Norma Hurtado, who today is practically sinking it,” said Chamber representative Carolina Arbeláez (Cambio Radical) about Hurtado’s signature in the presentation of file, with which they added eight supports so that the reform falls.
“Black, we are very happy,” Arbeláez continued, referring to his colleague Víctor Salcedo (Partido de la U), to whom he told that “that means that they finally agreed with us: this was an inconvenient reform, which put at risk “I risk the lives of all Colombians.”
Next, Representative Salcedo added that “we support Norma Hurtado’s decision to support the filing of the reform presentation.”
Regarding the initiative, the congressman from La U maintained that it had no fiscal framework and that it had “duplicity of functions and with many problems that we tried from all the communities to reach an agreement, but it was not possible.”
Finally, representative Andrés Forero (Democratic Center) indicated that this reform “is virtually sunk, unless the Government buys consciences, they no longer have a way to approve it in the Seventh Commission of the Senate. Of 14 senators, eight signed an archival presentation.” “Although we ended up defeated in the Chamber, that fight that we fought with arguments ended up bearing fruit, because we proposed that the reform, instead of solving the problems of the system, aggravates them,” he highlighted.
The senators who signed the archival presentation were members of the Democratic Center, the Conservative Party, the U Party, the Liberal Party, the Esperanza Center and Colombia Justa Libres.
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