Milei appointee to PAMI (Argentine Medicare) office: "Covid might be a solution to the Argentine pension deficit"

Senior advocates and opposition lawmakers have raised alarms over the recent appointment to an important PAMI (Argentine Medicare) office, of a businessman who in 2020 tweeted that "Covid might be a solution to the deficit in the Argentine pension system."

Guido Orlandi, 38, a restaurant owner with no experience in social security or public health, was appointed to manage PAMI's Local Management Unit IX - which oversees service in Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city.

Rosario is home to some 1.35 million people - of which over 175,000 are senior citizens.

"The coronavirus imported from China may be the solution to the deficit in the Argentine pension system," Orlandi expressed on his Twitter account on March 10, 2020 - in the earliest days of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 took over 130,000 lives in Argentina - the majority of them people over 60.

The tweet was visible until the online journal La Política Online reported it this Friday - after which it, and Orlandi's Twitter (X) account, were deleted.

His restaurant hosted election-night rallies for President Javier Milei's "Forward Liberty" (LLA) far-right party last year. Milei has pledged to privatize both PAMI and the nation's social security agency (ANSES).

Both PAMI and ANSES enjoy a surplus - and as of 2023, ANSES had a trust fund of US$76 billion. The two agencies serve over 7 million retired and disabled persons.

Milei has been denounced by opposition lawmakers for sneaking a provision in his first of two "mega-decrees" that would transfer the trust fund to treasury accounts - where it would likely be raided to finance the federal budget.

At: https://www-lapoliticaonline-com.translate.goog/santa-fe/karina-puso-al-frente-del-pami-rosario-a-un-empresario-que-dijo-que-el-covi-era-la-solucion-al-deficit-jubilatorio/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Restaurant owner Guido Orlandi - who was given a thumbs up this week from the far-right-Javier Milei administration to manage the Argentine Medicare office in the country's third-largest city.

Orlandi, who lacks any experience in social security or public health, had tweeted in 2020 that "Covid might be a solution to the deficit in the Argentine pension system."

Like President Milei, Orlandi had frequently taken to social media to both attack Covid abatement measures during their height in 2020, as well as to to laud then-U.S. President Donald Trump.