«We are working intensely and I am optimistic. We are talking, we are mulling it over, we are looking for a solution and exploring formulas. “I don’t want to say more but I’m optimistic.” A little more than 48 hours after the deadline given by the Government expires at … insurers to join the Muface concert and with the resounding no from two of the three entities that currently provide this service, SegurCaixa Adeslas and DKV (the other is Asisa), the Minister of Digital Transformation and the Public Service is already on the table. Óscar López, on whom the process depends, was yesterday “almost convinced” that the crisis that keeps the 1.5 million officials and family members in suspense who receive their health care through the private policy Muface will be closed with an agreement before 10:00 am this coming Monday, when the deadline given by the Government will end.
In recent days the Contacts between the Government and insurers have intensified with a key issue on the table: compensation for losses associated with the concert. The last ones, for around 500 million euros that the entities claim to have lost with the current concert; and the future ones for the concert of the period 2025-2027, which they anticipate in an amount of about 400 million and whose potential recovery the rebalancing clause introduced by the Government in the specifications does not ensure. This is a question of economic differences.
The 4,500 million euros in three years put on the table for the new agreement, based on an increase in the period of 33% in the premiums that insurers receive for serving mutual members, and the improvement of close to 1,000 million compared to the previous concert, which illustrate that “enormous effort” made by the State on which Óscar López has not stopped insisting, have been considered insufficient by insurers and they have left the future of Muface in the air.
Boost to the agreement
The blocking of the situation and the growing climate of social tension have encouraged La Moncloa to intervene. Sources familiar with the negotiation and others close to Muface agree that for a few days the message that has been sent to them is that the renewal of the concert has become a priority for the Government and that La Moncloa has given full powers to Minister Óscar López to close the crisis.
“The Moncloa has given the order to save ‘Soldier Ryan’ (by Óscar López) and the options to do so are being considered,” says a source close to Muface.
ABC already reported in its Wednesday edition that the Ministry has already informed the parties that it would be willing to call a third tender if no other viable solution to the situation was found.
The equation is not easy to square. The rebalancing clause introduced by the Government in the specifications of the second tender as an incentive to encourage insurers to participate, even under an economic offer lower than the one they requested, is not seen by them as a sufficient guarantee of economic reparation in case that the concert will generate losses, as already demonstrated by the no from SegurCaixa Adeslas and DKV.
And, on the other hand, the margin within the current specifications to improve the economic conditions of the concert seems, on paper, limited. The sources involved in the negotiation consulted by ABC agree that at this point everything seems to point to a third tender. The problem is that the Government has a threat of a strike in the CSIF Administration in case this scenario comes to fruition.
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