<\/p>\n
To outsiders, the Facebook group chat reads like a snarl of nonsensical emojis and letters. To uninsured Argentine cancer patients, it\u2019s a lifeline.<\/p>\n
The surreptitious network connects advocates who have spare drugs to Argentines with cancer who lost access to their treatment in March 2024 when President Javier Milei<\/a><\/span> suspended a federal agency, known as DADSE, that paid for their expensive medications.<\/p>\n Whenever Facebook cracks the coded pleas and removes the group for violating its rules on drug sales, another appears, swelling with Argentines who say they\u2019ve grown sicker since the radical libertarian president took a chainsaw<\/a><\/span> to health care.<\/p>\n \u201cAll I need for my body to function is this medication, and Milei is saying, \u2018There\u2019s no money,\u2019\u201d said Ariel Wagener, a 47-year-old pizza chef with leukemia who was hospitalized this year with failing kidneys after losing access to his medication. Without DADSE, a month\u2019s worth of his leukemia drug costs $21,000.<\/p>\n Wagener\u2019s condition stabilized after he got leftover medication via Facebook, donated by a family whose loved one had died of cancer.<\/p>\n The halting of millions of dollars of free cancer drugs is just one way Milei\u2019s austerity drive<\/a><\/span> has torn through the public health system that once set Argentina apart in Latin America, ensuring that health care was free for pretty much everyone who couldn\u2019t afford private insurance.<\/p>\n Since taking office in December 2023<\/a><\/span>, Milei has slashed Argentina\u2019s health care budget by 48% in real terms. His administration fired over 2,000 Health Ministry employees, including 1,400 over just a few days in January.<\/p>\n As part of Milei\u2019s plan to remake Argentina\u2019s troubled economy<\/a><\/span> and cut waste and bureaucracy, officials gutted the National Cancer Institute, suspending early detection programs for breast and cervical cancer.<\/p>\n They froze federal funds for immunization campaigns, hobbling vaccine access as Argentina confronts a measles outbreak for the first time in decades. They dismantled the National Directorate for HIV, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis, leading to testing and treatment delays. They defunded emergency contraception and stopped distributing abortion<\/a><\/span> pills.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing setbacks we haven\u2019t seen in decades,\u201d said Mar\u00eda Fernanda Boriotti, president of Argentina\u2019s Federation of Health Professionals. \u201cHIV patients without treatment, cancer patients dying for lack of medication, hospitals without resources, health professionals pushed out of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n The government curtailed medical coverage for retirees and lifted price controls on prescription medication and private health plans, causing prices to spike by 250% and 118% respectively, official data shows.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve stopped buying milk, yogurt, anything that\u2019s not absolutely essential,\u201d said Susana Pecora, 71, who lost the insurance plan that covered her husband\u2019s antipsychotic drugs when the price jumped 40% last year.<\/p>\n Milei and Trump see eye-to-eye<\/strong><\/p>\n Milei campaigned on a promise to shrink the state two years before President Donald Trump<\/a><\/span> and Elon Musk<\/a><\/span> took up their own chainsaws<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n The Argentine has become a close ally of the Trump administration, including on health policy. Argentina has<\/a><\/span> followed the U.S. out of the World Health Organization<\/a><\/span>, and last month received a visit from U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Meeting Kennedy in Buenos Aires, Argentine Health Minister Mario Lugones announced a review of Argentina\u2019s health system to align it with Kennedy\u2019s Make America Healthy Again<\/a><\/span> movement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have similar visions about the path forward,\u201d Lugones said of Kennedy.<\/p>\n Milei has not yet attempted to replace universal coverage with an insurance-based system, as he vowed on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n But in stripping Argentines of coverage and increasing premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, he is moving Argentina closer to the U.S. model, said Macarena Sabin Paz, health team coordinator at Argentina\u2019s Center for Legal and Social Studies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are beginning to see the idea … where if you lose your job, or become seriously ill, you may have to sell your car, whatever you have, to pay for health care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Milei\u2019s staffing cuts have eviscerated agencies tasked with planning, financing and tracking immunization campaigns, disrupting data collection and jeopardizing the country\u2019s respected childhood vaccine program.<\/p>\n The cuts have coincided with a measles outbreak that in April led to Argentina\u2019s first measles death in two decades.<\/p>\n \u201cArgentina has been one of the most advanced South American countries and here we see it abandoning public health,\u201d said Dr. Stanley Plotkin, an American physician who helped develop the measles vaccine in the 1960s.<\/p>\n Milei\u2019s spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, did not respond to requests for comment. Lugones also did not respond to questions on the impact of policy changes.<\/p>\n A tidal wave of cuts<\/strong><\/p>\n After decades of unbridled spending by left-wing populist governments that brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts<\/a><\/span>, Milei delivered on his campaign promises of taming extreme inflation<\/a><\/span> and notching a fiscal surplus.<\/p>\n But even experts who agree Argentina\u2019s health care system needed reform say the cutbacks have been so deep and fast that they\u2019ve hit like a tidal wave.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of the destruction of the state, we\u2019ve never experienced anything like this, not even during the military dictatorship,\u201d said Fabio Nu\u00f1ez, ex-coordinator of the National Directorate for HIV, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis who was among hundreds fired from the agency.<\/p>\n Charged with leading prevention efforts and treatments for infectious diseases, the agency has lost 40% of its staff and 76% of its annual budget. Hospitals now face shortages of everything from virus testing supplies to medications to condoms.<\/p>\n The cuts have coincided with a surge in sexually transmitted infections. Last year HIV cases spiked by 20% and syphilis by 50%.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re avoiding the expense now but will pay for it later as people seek emergency care,\u201d said Cristian Pizzuti, a 31-year-old with HIV who documented 103 cases of patients deprived of their daily antiretroviral pills for weeks at a time last year. Pizzuti said he recently received expired medication and suffered a severe allergic reaction after being switched to a cheaper drug.<\/p>\n Tuberculosis cases also climbed by 25% last year. TB clinics report delays in obtaining test results.<\/p>\n \u201cAs people go about their lives, waiting for results, they are spreading the disease to others,\u201d said Dr. Santiago Jimenez, who treats HIV and TB patients in an impoverished Buenos Aires neighborhood. \u201cIt\u2019s an epidemiological disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n Hospitals under strain<\/strong><\/p>\n Free public hospitals have become flooded with Argentines who dropped their private insurance due to increased premiums or who lost their job \u2014 and with it, their social security plans funded through payroll contributions. Buenos Aires facilities reported a 20%-30% increase in demand in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n The strain was visible at the free public Rodolfo Rossi Hospital in La Plata last month, where crowds jostled in the outpatient clinic and long lines spilled from the pharmacy.<\/p>\n Pharmacists have reported drug shortages as mass layoffs caused administrative chaos and the government froze a program that provided basic medications to Argentine public health centers.<\/p>\n Silvana Mansilla, 43, spent half the day waiting to pick up her monthly supply of thyroid medication \u2014 which has doubled in price to $22 \u2014 only to find the hospital had run out. \u201cWhere\u2019s the government? What are they doing about this?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n With hiring frozen, doctors said they\u2019re handling double the patient load.<\/p>\n Overwhelmed by ever-increasing workloads, Argentina\u2019s leading public Garrahan Pediatric Hospital in Buenos Aires has hemorrhaged 200 medical professionals since Milei took office.<\/p>\n