Buenos Aires, February 24 (NA) -- In February 2026, prepaid medicine consolidated a trend of updating fees above the general price level, according to the latest data collected by INDEC and the Superintendence of Health Services. At the close of the second month of the year, the annual increase in private health coverage reached an average of 34.5%, surpassing the general inflation of the period, which stood at 31%, by 3.5 percentage points. This adjustment dynamic responds to the price deregulation initiated at the end of 2023, which allowed sector companies to align their revenues with the evolution of operational costs and the structure of medical supplies. According to what was verified by the Argentine News Agency with statistical records, over the past year, the main market operators applied monthly increases ranging between 2.4% and 3.2%, with the aim of compensating for parity updates in the health sector and the rising cost of imported medical technology. In the long-term perspective, the gap between prepaid medicine and the Consumer Price Index (IPC) is even more pronounced. From December 2023 to February 2026, the cost of private health care accumulated an increase of 312%. Currently, the cost of an intermediate prepaid health plan for a typical family represents, on average, 18.5% of a registered salary. In February 2025, this same coverage demanded 16% of income, marking a transfer of resources towards the private health system at the expense of other consumption. Unlike public services, which showed increases of 593% in the same period due to the elimination of state subsidies, prepaid medicine has maintained a more constant curve of increases linked to cost inflation. However, the persistence of increases above the general IPC keeps the membership rate under pressure, while the system seeks to balance financial sustainability with users' ability to pay in a context of stable real incomes. In the same 26-month period, the accumulated general inflation was 200%. This differential of 112 percentage points places private health as one of the items with the greatest relative variation within the consumption basket of middle and high-income households. The impact of these adjustments is directly reflected in the participation of the health fee in the family budget.
