The healthcare plans for unionised workers will receive AR $13.1 billion (US$ 297 million) from State coffers to ease the pressure of rising healthcare costs, according to a decree signed Monday and published in the government's Official Gazette.
The decision comes just six months before the country goes to the polls.
The Macri government is reportedly preparing a number of measures to address the rising tensions over cost of living pressures among the poor and working class.
Close to 300 programmes will benefit from Monday's additional funding announcement, which the government has funded through the debt and interest payments it received from the private healthcare plan provider OSDE ($8.5 billion) and the interests from the Bonar 2020 bond emitted in 2016.
The funds will be pooled into the State's Universal Health Coverage, in a special emergency fund.
The Superintendency of Health Services (SSS) will then receive and release the funds according to norms which are still being discussed among the Social Development Ministry, the Production and Labour Ministry and the CGT confederation of unions.
BOOSTS TO WELFARE
Argentines will go to the polls in October to vote in presidential and general elections.
The Social Development Ministry is also working on a series of funding measures to increase the monthly payments of the Complimentary Social Wage welfare programme, Perfil reported.
The first increase to the plan will reportedly take effect in April, rising to 6,250 pesos per month, then 6,500 in June and 7,500 in July. The increased funding amounts to a total of AR$ 562 million.
The Social Development Ministry's budgetary allocations for the programme rose 127 percent in December 2018 in comparison to December 2017, from AR $ 713 million to AR $1.6 billion. Meanwhile, the number of people receiving the welfare package in that same period rose 68 percent, from 160,000 to 271,000.
-TIMES/PERFIL
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