The Union of Dental Surgeons (SMD) welcomes, with unequivocal vehemence, the introduction of the Bill aimed at regulating the so-called Health Plans, a long-standing, persistent, and foundational demand of our institutional work.
It must be stated, without equivocation, that SMD was the true catalyst for this discussion in the public and political sphere. For too long, there has been an unacceptable conceptual confusion: almost all political decision-makers failed to distinguish, with proper rigour, between a Health Plan and a Health Insurance policy, an ignorance that fostered fertile ground for misleading and harmful practices.
Throughout a series of systematic meetings with all parliamentary groups, SMD presented an extensive dossier, marked by technical depth and strong argumentation, setting out not only the diagnosis of the problem but also a concrete and workable legislative proposal. In parallel, we maintained productive dialogue with regulatory and supervisory bodies — ASF, ASAE, ERS, the Competition Authority, and the Directorate-General for Consumer Affairs — whose consensus was unequivocal: regulation of this sector is not only necessary, but urgent.
It was in this context that we openly challenged all political forces to act. It is worth noting, in the interests of fairness, that the Socialist Party parliamentary group responded positively to this appeal, with the initiative of MP Miguel da Costa Matos standing out.
The anarchic proliferation of Health Plans, resulting from a regulatory vacuum with no parallel, is manifestly intolerable. At present, around 2.5 million citizens subscribe to these products, many under the mistaken belief that they are protected by health insurance, unaware that such plans lack a specific legal framework and any supervisory body to which they can appeal.
It is important to clearly denounce the semantic engineering underlying the designation “Health Plan,” conceived to deliberately generate ambiguity regarding the concept of “Health Insurance”.
It is therefore unsurprising that even insurance operators have adopted this practice, exploiting the weaknesses of an unregulated market. Moreover, these plans often rely on practices that demean the dignity of dentists, promoting the illusion of free care through manifestly unrealistic fee schedules, while at the same time misleading citizens.
I would also like to formally recognise the working group I had the honour of coordinating, including colleagues who, although not members of SMD, contributed with a strong sense of mission and remarkable technical insight to the development of this proposal. We are aware that this is only the beginning of a legislative journey that will require vigilance and determination. Even so, we now perceive an unmistakable sign of change: for the first time, the regulation of Health Plans is no longer an abstraction, but a real possibility. By ironic coincidence, a Health Plans Association has recently been created, which only reinforces the urgent need to establish a strict, transparent, and fair regulatory framework.
