244 I EL DERECHO A LA SALUD
LAW Nº 18,610
Nombramiento del Presidente del Instituto Nacional de Obras Sociales (INOS), Dr. Andrés Julián Fescina, el 22 de mayo de 1970. Dr. Andrés Julián Fescina was appointed president of INOS on May 22, 1970
The military government (1966-1973) established the compulsory contribution of workers and those of employers for workers on the payroll, a situation that was made effective in 1970 by Law N° 18,610. Likewise, the National Institute of Social Services Organizations (INOS) was created to be the regulating body under the Ministry of Social Welfare. INOS administered a redistribution fund intended to provide financial assistance to those Social Service organizations that had difficulties in meeting their expenses. The law established minimum benefits: medical assistance in consulting rooms and homes, hospital in-patient confinement, emergencies, complementary diagnosis and treatment, and dental care. Another law, N° 19,710, set the rules for contracts with medical trade-unions and other services providers. These regulations established a financing system for the Social Security organizations based on contributions on the payroll of 1% for the workers and 2% for the employers. The entities had to allocate 70% of their revenues to providing medical services to their members. The obligatory nature of the contribution for all wage-earners strengthened the role of the trade-unions. With respect to this, the press secretary of the Light and Energy Union (Luz y Fuerza), Luis Angeleri expressed in his book, “Argentine Trade Unions are Power”: “The monthly fees the members paid into their trade-unions, together with their extraordinary economic contributions began to give the trade-union organization an economic wealth that allowed the workers to think the trade unions could put together integrated social actions to give the worker and his family all the protection that would allow them the full dimension of their natural rights as human beings (…) Social Security organizations were started by the trade-unions, thus covering what the State had left vacant for a long time. The community had had hospitals or private clinics as their choice for health care until then. (…) Private institutions were forbidden territory to the greater part of the population. The trade-unions began to fill this void and enforced integrated medical assistance that contemplated coverage for the member’s family group, in both preventive medicine and sophisticated surgery. The trade-union polyclinics are real health centers that display the social conception of the Argentinean workers’ organizations.”