Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Tuesday May 14, 2019 Health Insurance

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Tuesday May 14, 2019

Today I got it into my head to sign up for Health Insurance with SURA like my friend Tom in Manizales who pays around $40 a month and is very happy with it. So we went to the SURA office only to find out that SURA has very few registered users in the area and therefore have no contracted medical facilities in Tulua, the closest being in Buga or Cali.

They sent us to register with Nueva EPS, the Government insurance with no age limit, no problems with pre-existing conditions, and the same price for all..

Here is some info I found out about it:

Colombia’s Healthcare System

The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks Colombia’s healthcare system as #22 out of 191 countries it ranked. Also, no other countries in Latin America were ranked higher than Colombia. So, according to WHO, Colombia has the best healthcare system in Latin America.
In addition, Colombia’s healthcare system is ranked higher than many wealthier countries like the United States (#37), Germany (#25), Canada (#30) and Australia (#32).

Health Insurance Options in Colombia

One of the reasons that Colombia has such a highly rated healthcare system is due to a new constitution that Colombia drafted in 1991 that made access to healthcare a basic human right to all citizens of Colombia, as well as foreign residents of Colombia.
There are three types of health insurance available in Colombia:

EPS – Entidadas Promotoras de Salud – this is the public health insurance that is mandatory for everybody who is a resident of Colombia. The monthly premium is calculated as 12.5 percent of the monthly gross income that you declare to the EPS.
Prepagada – this is private healthcare insurance in Colombia. The monthly premium for Prepagada varies depending on your age, the plan you choose and any pre-existing conditions.
SISBEN – this is a free government subsidized healthcare system, which is only for very poor or homeless Colombians.

It cost 65,000 pesos (under $20 USD) to sign up and it wil be 77,000 pesos per month ($23.40 USD). Not too hard to take. The downside is that I will have to run in to pay the premium every month in Tulua or pay about $2.50 to have it transferred from here... Grrrrrrr. Some things are just so very antiquated here...

We then made a stop at HomeCenter to get an electronic rodent repeller and we bought some poison pellets to place in the upper places they travel. We have to make sure none of this can get near the dogs.

Then we made our grocery run. I got a green and a red cabbage and cut those up for 13 of my salads.. That is the upside of Colombia...

I checked outside and actually saw 2 hummers competing for the feeders! And this new fellow looks even more colourful according to my pictures.
Evening update:
We now have THREE (3) hummers vying for the 4 feeders. They seem to be concentrating mostly on not sharing the new big red one.... I tried, and failed miserably to get a decent shot of the 3. Shooting in such little light is always a huge challenge. So here are the only 2 good shots from tonight -