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Chile Moves to Create a National Health Service

  • Constitutional Convention agrees to boost state health system
  • Article removes choice to pay into private health system
A healthcare worker views a monitor inside the room at the Posta Central Emergency Hospital in Santiago, Chile.

A healthcare worker views a monitor inside the room at the Posta Central Emergency Hospital in Santiago, Chile.

Photographer: Cristobal Olivares/Bloomberg

Chile’s Constitutional Convention voted this week to create a national health service, one of the central demands behind the country’s 2019 social unrest.

Under the plan, to be financed at least in part through a levy on all workers, those who use private health insurers, known as Isapres, will automatically pay into the state system in future. They will be able to take out private insurance but at additional cost.