For more than two years, members of Unión Personal, the health insurance fund managed by the UPCN union, have suffered systematic draining across the country. There are no benefits, no medications, no reimbursements, no appointments, no answers. Thousands of state workers and officials who are mandatory members, along with individuals who voluntarily joined, have been literally left adrift.
Who should be overseeing this? The National Health Services Superintendence, under the Ministry of Health. It does not intervene, does not sanction, does not audit. The official silence is total. The Judiciary also does not respond. Despite multiple complaints and amparo actions documenting the dismantling, there is no ruling of general scope to stop the draining. The Judiciary, an essential power that should safeguard the rights and guarantees of the population, sentences citizens facing critical circumstances to allocate resources they often do not have in an attempt to obtain a ruling that forces compliance with the regulatory framework governing the matter and, above all, the battered National Constitution, repeatedly violated by the disastrous economic deregulation process designed through DNU 70/2023 and consummated with Law 27,742, ironically titled «Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines.» Nothing could be further from the truth, considering the serious regression in key areas such as Health, where workers’ contributions are fraudulently diverted to private health companies, while health insurance funds and prepaid plans are allowed to charge abusive copayments, turning the solidarity-based health system that Argentines once enjoyed into a perverse mechanism that devours members, extracts every last cent from them, and then regurgitates them, hopeless, into public hospitals.
As for the Ombudsman, nothing. The position has been vacant for years. And that is no coincidence. This figure exists to intervene when the State fails, to represent citizens against abuse of power. If there were a head, Unión Personal could not continue to dismantle itself in silence. Without an ombudsman, there is no one to bother.
The underlying problem is the legal nature of health insurance funds. They are regulated by Laws 23,660 and 23,661. They are non-state public entities, non-profit, funded by members’ contributions. They are based on the principle of solidarity: those who contribute more and get sick less finance those who have less and need more. They are not companies, yet Unión Personal cuts benefits and services and imposes abusive fees, surreptitiously forcing its members to switch to its «premium» alternative, Accord Salud, which it offers using «the same infrastructure, capital, and resources of the failed health insurance fund.» Or worse, enabling the various ministries, under the pretext of the evident degradation of services, to offer «packages of captive workers» to the highest bidder in dubious bidding processes, as in the case of National Security, where Gendarmerie and Prefecture were handed on a silver platter to the company Medicus amid the scandalous embezzlement of the Institute of Social Works of the Armed and Security Forces (IOSFA).
But nothing is coincidental, since the execution of this plan was only possible after La Libertad Avanza declared a National Emergency, deregulated health insurance funds, and freed copayment rates, simultaneously giving corporations, ministries, and agencies free rein to negotiate with the health of beneficiaries, violating Article 75, subsection 22 of the Constitution, which grants constitutional status to international treaties; Article 14 bis, which establishes the pillars of social solidarity; and Article 42, which protects the health, safety, and economic interests of consumers and users.
The silence is replicated in the press. Major national media outlets, with renowned journalists, omit the issue. Those who claim to be independent respond to the power agenda: attack the opposition to cover up their own irregularities. Crimes that occur but are neither named nor investigated. All within the framework of the sinking of public health and the business of prepaid medicine. Health for the few, business for the many. The same happens with most opposition political arcs; there is no complaint, no request for information, no pressure. All in the same tune.
This is how the design of impunity works. Unions that claim to represent workers but defend their coffers. A State that should audit but actually protects those at the top by freeing markets and violating fundamental rights. Power groups that trade in health and buy goodwill. A Judiciary that remains silent and omits. Consumer protection associations that do not intervene because they know there will be no consequences. Co-opted media and journalists that divert the focus of discussion. Scattered victims and members. What could go wrong?
That is why the phrase stands alone: «The system cannot fight corruption because corruption is the system.» When political power, corporations, union leadership, the Judiciary, associations, and the media are all part of the same pact, no control is possible. It hurts to say it: Argentine meekness silently accepts how the health of our families deteriorates, while the risk to everyone’s lives grows. We have democracy, we have laws, we have a voice, but we choose resignation.
para mi estos zurdos de mierda defienden sindicatos chorros como union personal que se llenan los bolsillos mientras la gente se queda sin obra social el gobierno mira pa otro lado la superintendencia no hace nada son todos complices argentina es un desastre por estos parasitos voten bien la proxima boludos firmado el gaucho cabrero
Para mí esto huele a pacto de la misma mafia de siempre: Gobierno, sindicalistas y medios, todos cómplices del vaciamiento de Unión Personal. Los laburantes se quedan sin obra social mientras estos chorros se llenan los bolsillos. ¡Basta de silencio! La Justicia y el Defensor del Pueblo están del lado de los patrones, no de los trabajadores.