The numbers are grim for Dominican workers. A recent investigation by Juan Bosch Foundation researchers reveals that pension company yield is nine times the yield retiring workers will receive in pensions. For a worker who retires making RD$17,610 a month, his pension will be only RD$4,015 a month. The researchers reported that workers’ social security coverage is only 36.3%.
Social researchers Matías Bosch and Airon Fernández shared their findings into the high yields and profitability of the health (ARS) and pension (AFP) providers compared to the services and costs of health plans for people in the Dominican Republic last Monday, 20 November 2019 during a presentation at the National Library. Bosch and Fernández have compiled their findings in the book “Sure Business or Social Security” (Del Negocio Seguro a la Seguridad Social) that is available to the general public for free. The researchers say that the ARS and AFP providers consumed more than RD$100 billion in profits, administrative and operating expenses.
During the presentation, Bosch called unjust, inhumane and in violation of the Constitution that the population does not have a social security system that guarantees their health, while workers savings are generating very high profitability for big business. He said the state has relinquished its role as guarantor of rights, while more resources are transferred to private companies. He criticized the insufficient health services coverage these provide, leaving up to the individuals to cover a significant part of their medical expenses.
The authors indicate that while the pension funds have reached practically 15% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the numbers project Dominicans will receive the worst pensions in Latin America.
“This privatizing and mercantilist model generates a precarious, dehumanized and non-solidarity health and pension system that impacts on health statistics, quality of life, inequality, poverty and concentration of wealth really alarming,” state the authors.
Bosch and Fernández say that faced with this reality, there is an urgent need for structural and democratic reform, based on an authentically democratic, transparent and well-founded discussion, which recovers the solidarity and rights guarantee character that every true social security system should have.
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Listin Diario
Diario Libre
25 November 2019