The Muface crisis seems to have no end. The Ministry of Public Function, with Óscar López at the helm, seeks to resolve this conflict that he inherited with his arrival to his position after Escrivá’s departure to the Bank of Spain, but so far he has not been able to find the key to find a balance between limited public spending and convincing insurers to continue with the model. To this end, yesterday afternoon it approved an increase in the in extremis deadline for insurers to submit offers, seeking another entity to accompany Asisa.
However, in this time, everything has happened: something unprecedented such as the Muface concert being deserted for the first time in history, as well as the fact that it is the Executive himself who asks the insurers what they need to go to the contract. A change in discourse in which López has gone from imposing the conditions to the entities having the upper hand. While, more than a million people are still in suspensebeing the most affected. This is what the unions denounce, stating that patients are seeing appointments canceled for all types of check-ups and tests.
Talks begin in March
Already in the first quarter of 2024 the first rumors emerged. The companies began the year demanding a 50% increase in premiums for the next concert, as well as establishing a relationship of a maximum gap of 20% between public and mutual spending per capita. The latter has been a claim that has been gaining strength over the months, since that is where insurers have found the biggest hole in their accounts.
Summer brings the first official figure: premiums 24% higher
After a relatively calm summer for the companies, just after returning from vacation, Muface’s first intention was known: increase bonuses for each official by 24% in a biannual agreementuntil 2026. That is, it represented half of what was slipped in March by the entities, although the contract returned to the two-year formula, something that the companies also demanded in order to correct the inflationary costs that were concentrated in the tender between 2022 and 2024.
Adeslas agreed with this offer, although they demanded that, for that price, the contract be annual, as they commented exclusively to this medium. If the tender ended in 2026, “the losses would amount to 130 million in the two years,” company sources commented.
The Government’s first offer, downward: a premium increase of 17% in two years
Although in reality, the official offer by the Ministry of Public Function, directed by Óscar López, was below what the mutual society itself proposed: an increase in premiums of 17.12%, which represented an increase of 16.5%. % in the first year and 0.62% in the second.
The Government was proud, as this was the largest amount ever offered in Muface, but the insurers’ point of view was totally different. It was above the rumor that was heard days before – 14% more – but very far from what insurers were willing to accept to continue offering their services to the model.
At that time, the entities revealed something unprecedented: the losses that the concert in which they were immersed was causing them. A total of 429 million euros of red numbers among the three insurers in the triennium. The losses, however, were unequal, since Adeslas owns 50% of the officials attached to the mutual society. Therefore, the insurer owned by Mutua Madrileña at 50.01% and CaixaBank for the remaining amount, lost 256 million in the three-year period, compared to 113 million from Asisa and 60 million from DKV, the largest minority of the three in terms of patients. .
The first blow of the insurers: they leave Muface deserted for the first time
But the first right of the entities towards the Government occurred when in November they left the tender void for the first time in the history of the mutual society.
This is where the real Muface crisis began, especially because the deadlines with the previous tender were already very tight. There were less than two months left for the contract to end, and the health of just over a million people was still up in the air, with no winners.
Furthermore, the socialist part of the Executive grew dwarfs in its own garden, with the interventions of Mónica García, Minister of Health. One of Sumar’s most recognized voices already spoke at that time about the possibility of all officials becoming public as of 2025, a fact that alerted the insurers themselves, but also López.
Unions, the insurance tax and the unprecedented public consultation
November advanced and, in the absence of news for a new offer, the unions called for demonstrations throughout Spain against “inaction.” In turn, the Government sought, in its tax reform, to try to punish private health insurance, the only ones exempt from the 8% Insurance Premium Tax (IPS), although this proposal ultimately did not come to fruition. But the most surprising thing was the tone down by the Executive, calling for a public consultation to find out in detail the demands of the insurers, something that also happened for the first time.
The “no” of Adeslas and DKV, the transfer to the public and a new insurer
In this consultation, the possibility of the three-year formula was raised, which finally became a reality when on December 17, in the Council of Ministers, a contract was announced until 2027 with an increase in premiums of 33.5%, approaching the proposal of insurers with a higher payment for older clients.
But not even for those. Both Adeslas and DKV have rejected the Government’s offer, and only Asisa can save the officials from undergoing a third tender, having the previous contract extended. The problem for the insurer chaired by Francisco Ivorra comes because welcoming 700,000 clients at once would mean an economic effort to meet Muface’s requirements that would be difficult to compensate with the 4,000 million that the Government would give to Asisa in these three years.
Therefore, three new possibilities open up: that there is a flight of many of those insured by DKV and Adeslas to the public so that Asisa would be able to support the incorporation of thousands of mutual members; for the Government to find another insurer willing to present herself – hence the extension of the deadline until January 27 -; or the last option, which goes through launch a new offeralthough with very limited deadlines if the continuity order is not to be exceeded, which is currently three months.
But it seems that the second option is the one that is gaining strength in the face of this last-minute movement. The offer continues to be the one already known, so neither Adeslas nor DKV will be the candidates. Now, in view of the difficulty for Asisa to face 700,000 new policyholders alone, the Executive is looking for at least one partner to share the Muface cake so that mutuality does not disappear.
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