MEXICO CITY (Times Media Mexico) – In a second attempt, and with only enough Congress members to complete the regulatory assistance, the Morena party with 242 votes managed to reform the General Health Law and transfer 32.4 billion pesos from the Health Fund for Welfare to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP).
Maria Guadalupe Diaz, secretary of the Board of Directors at the Legislative Palace of San Lazaro, delayed the announcement for seconds, which allowed reaching the quorum of attendance, with more than 250 legislators; thus, the ruling that adds a second paragraph to Article 77 Bis 17, and modifies the second paragraph of Article 77 Bis 29 of the General Health Law, related to the Health Fund, was approved.
The opposition
However, the complaints and shouts continued in the plenary session: Claudia Pastor, affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), commented that “in an absolute fraud,” the Morena party “was slow to follow the instruction. I ask Parliamentary Services” of the Chamber of Deputies “to verify what you ordered,” to continue with the session, where the shouts invaded the premises on the subject of the Health Fund.
Due to the Plenary’s lack of conditions, a recess was decreed that lasted a little more than 20 minutes.
The coordinators of the parliamentary benches of the Tricolor, the National Action Party (PAN), and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), as well as the Citizens’ Movement (MC), announced during the day that they would present a formal complaint against Deputy María Guadalupe Díaz. They then began a particular discussion of what they accuse as the “disappearance of support for catastrophic illnesses” from the Health Fund.
María Alemán Muñoz Castillo, PRI deputy, stated: “How sad that they turn their backs on cancer patients, on HIV patients, on AIDS patients, on the diseases that most need their government’s backing and support. These (32 thousand 400 million pesos), let it be clear, are being taken from a fund that today is already reserved for Mexican men and women’s health and are being taken to current spending.
Entrepreneurs and the Health Fund
Regarding the channeling of money from the Health Fund to the SHCP, the Mexican Republic’s Employers’ Confederation (Coparmex) commented through a statement that it sees “with concern” this measure that will impact “the quality of life of thousands of Mexicans,” since the Health Fund, modified by the Moreno majority in the Chamber of Deputies, supports citizens without social security.
“The disappearance of 109 public trusts is not enough for the federal administration, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to make use of these resources in a discretionary manner, for an approximate amount of 68 billion pesos”.
