The General Mutuality of State Civil Officials (Muface) is close to disappearance if an agreement is not reached between the Government and the insurers. It is a public body dependent on the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function in charge of provide health care to the group of civil servants public in Spain.
Being dependent on the Government, MUFACE has been demanding for several months a negotiation in which an increase in the premium for insurers is proposed, since they currently have losses exceeding 200 million euros each year. Specifically, Muface’s idea was to achieve a 24% premium increase to be able to assume the costs of serving more than 1.5 million employees, while the insurers requested a 40% increase.
Well then, The Executive has proposed that the increase be 14%, a figure well below the requirements. Given this proposal, the three insurance companies that offer their services (Adeslas, Asisa and DKV) decided not attend the new tender called understanding that these are “totally insufficient” economic conditions.
Muface could disappear: how are the negotiations between the Government and insurers going?
After the overwhelming rejection of the insurers, The Government has approved an increase of 17.12% in the concert premium for the years 2025 and 2026. According to the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, this is “the largest increase in history”, which is why he trusts that the agreements will be signed. However, pending a response from Adeslas, Asisa and DKV, the Independent Trade Union Center and Civil Servants (CSIF)has spoken out calling the increase in the bonus “insufficient”since it is very far from the 24% proposed by Muface this past summer.
At the moment, the agreement is valid until January 1, 2025, so the Government has until that date to agree on the terms, and if an agreement is not closed, the public body could disappear. Insurers have until the first week of November to respond to the measure on the table.
Consequences of disappearance
If an agreement is not reached between insurers and the Government, the mutual benefit of civil servants would disappear, causing serious problems for public health. Its elimination would mean that, as of January 1, more than 1.5 million civil servants move to the public system, generating a much larger collapse than currently exists. If public healthcare is already highly stressed due to poor quality and long waiting lists, the disappearance of Muface would cause these problems to become even more serious.
In this sense, the only ones who would gain from this Government sabotage of the Muface regime would be the users of private healthcare, that would see their centers decongested by 1.5 million people.
Differences between Muface and Social Security
In the General Social Security Law, The functions of these two organizations are somewhat diffuse and not very illuminating.even in some sections, the areas covered by each of them are not identified, establishing certain gaps that can lead to confusion.
Muface is a public and autonomous organization that is supported by the Ministry of Finance and Public Function with the Secretary of State as mediator. Its main functions include the management of social benefits and Social Security healthcare. However, the occupation of this entity resides only among civil servants.
If it is true that there is an exception among the citizens to whom his office applies, Both spouses and direct descendants of the registered people can be part of this registry. It is worth highlighting the exclusion of Social Security Administration officials who are excluded from the Muface special regime.
On the contrary, Social Security includes the rest of the Spanish citizens who do not have the possibility of accessing the Muface registry. In general, it affects a large part of private activity and public organizations not related to the other modality. Furthermore, it is not only limited to individual management but also has an impact on the community of companies and their respective contractsamong other issues.