Three days after – leaving the concerted health care of 1.5 million civil servants and family members up in the air – two other public employee mutual societies ended on Friday the deadline to receive proposals from insurers who wanted to provide this service. In the case of Mujegu, which serves judges, prosecutors and the rest of the Justice Administration personnel, one of the companies that had been providing this attention, Sanitas, has decided not to apply for the new agreement (2024-2025), before the insufficiency of the economic improvement proposed by the Government. Sanitas was also in Muface and decided to leave.
According to sources in the insurance sector, it has chosen not to attend the new agreement of the General Mutuality of Justice (Mugeju) considering that the proposal to improve the payment of premiums, which was included in the specifications, of 11, 73%, was not enough to make the provision of this service profitable.
The three largest mutual societies for civil servants (Muface, which covers 1.49 million teachers, police officers, tax and labor inspectors…; Isfas, which serves 595,000 soldiers and civil guards; and the aforementioned Mugeju, which provides coverage to 91,000 people) have been operating for half a century. Normally every two years, a new concert is held to see which insurers want to attend each of these concerts. Public employees can choose whether they want their mutual insurance company to offer them public health care or health care through a concerted insurer. The State pays a premium for each covered official. It had never happened that the Muface contest, the largest, was deserted.
The attention to judges, prosecutors or lawyers of the Administration of Justice is guaranteed through concerted insurers, since they and Asisa have chosen to participate in this contest. All the Mugeju mutualists who now went to receive medical services at the La Zarzuela Hospital, the La Moraleja Hospital (in the Sanchinarro neighborhood), the Virgen del Mar Hospital (in Chamartín) or the Cima Hospital in Barcelona will no longer be able to go . Sanitas is owned by the British cooperative Bupa.
In the current Mugeju concert, valid between 2021 and 2024, in addition to Sanitas, Asisa and Adeslas were also present, who already announced last Tuesday that they would apply for the new agreement. Instead, DKV decided, like Sanitas, to leave Mujegu. Meanwhile, Mapfre and Nueva Mutua Sanitaria have not yet clarified whether they have presented themselves or not.
Sanitas explains that after studying in detail the conditions of this new document, “the company considers that these do not guarantee the provision of the service under the quality conditions that Sanitas considers necessary.”
The main problem both in Muface and in other civil servants’ mutual societies is the sharp rise in prices that has occurred in recent years and the increase in medical consultations and treatments. This has meant that the financing of the model has been insufficient. The three that participated in Muface and have decided not to appear on this occasion, claim to have recorded losses of 600 million euros, in aggregate, in the last three years.
The Ministry of Public Function, to try to convince the insurance companies to stay, but that increase has not been enough. The companies say that with less than 40% they would still lose money. In fact, DKV has calculated that with this 17% proposal they would lose 77 million euros in two years, which would also have to be recorded in the 2024 accounts, due to current insurance accounting regulations. Asisa has even suggested that, if it comes under the proposed conditions, it could go bankrupt.
To try to save the delicate situation of Muface, the Executive is preparing one that could raise the payment to interested insurers up to 24%, although it remains to be seen if this increase would be enough. In addition, it is considering applying a forced extension of the service, in the event that there is no agreement.
Civil servants’ unions, such as CSIF, have called rallies for Monday (in front of the Ministry of Finance in Madrid and in the rest of Spain before the provincial government subdelegations) to demand that the current Muface concert be safeguarded. . The concern among public employees is maximum, since many have been receiving health care in the same hospitals for decades, to which they now do not know if they will be able to go. The Ministry of Public Administration has tried to calm things down and is convinced that a solution will be found.
