Elena Viyella de Paliza and Dr. Bernardo Defillo have squared off for a no-holds-barred battle over the social security health care package that has yet to start up. Earlier in the week, Defillo sent a letter to Dona Elena Viyella de Paliza, questioning National Council of Entrepreneurs (CONEP) members’ sincerity about the launch of the health plans for employees. In the return salvo, the head of CONEP told reporters that Dr. Defillo’s stint as superintendent for Worker’s Health and Risks was over, and his re-instatement would depend on the approval of a consensus among the National Social Security Council members, and “until such time, he (Dr. Defillo) should refrain from pressuring people to stay on the job…” The note was signed by both the CONEP representative as well as the COPARDOM representative, Radhames Martinez Aponte. According to the press statements, the chief executives of the Social Security System finished their terms last December and it is now necessary to select the new leadership, sending a list of candidates to the Executive Branch.
In yet another meeting with reporters, Defillo said that CONEP had ties to some of the enterprises that were breaching the law, and that the organization was interested in putting someone who would respond to their interests in the superintendent’s chair. He said that the CONEP’s intention was to eliminate the superintendent’s job so that there would be no controls or that these would be flexible enough to permit the CONEP to achieve their economic interests in the program. Defillo also said that of the 76 entities that were initially enlisted to provide health care for workers, 30 were eliminated due to poor evaluations of their ability to fulfill workers’ needs.