JANUARY 02, 2007

HAPPY New Year: Costa Ricans welcomed the dawn of a new year late Sunday and early Monday with traditions including setting off ample fireworks and visiting neighbors to wish them a feliz año nuevo. Plenty of tourists also celebrated the beginning of 2007 at popular destinations such as Junquillal Beach, above; the December-May tourism high season is now in full swing.

CHRISTMAS with the Stars: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, arguably the entertainment world’s most famous couple, visited Costa Rica to meet with Colombian refugees over the holidays. Jolie, a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador, called Colombia’s civil conflict “the biggest humanitarian tragedy in the Western hemisphere.” See story below.

‘Tis the season for holiday cheer, family togetherness, and, in Costa Rica, lots and lots of illegal fireworks – a popular tradition the National Police worked hard to combat this week. Police seized more than 25,000 explosive devices, according to a statement from the Public Security Ministry, although a glance around San José on New Year’s Eve showed there were still plenty of explosions to go around.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt – the Hollywood actors so ubiquitous they’ve been granted the ultimate sign of superstar coupledom, a combined moniker (“Brangelina”) – visited San José on Christmas Day to hand out gifts and meet with Colombian refugees.

Costa Rican health authorities are investigating the recent death of a 72-year-old man in Liberia, capital of the northwestern province of Guanacaste. They suspect he may be the first – and presumably the only – victim of hemorrhagic dengue in Costa Rica in 2006.

U.S. Embassy Closed Today

National Police Targets Illegal Fireworks

‘Tis the season for holiday cheer, family togetherness, and, in Costa Rica, lots and lots of illegal fireworks – a popular tradition the National Police worked hard to combat this week. Police seized more than 25,000 explosive devices, according to a statement from the Public Security Ministry, although a glance around San José on New Year’s Eve showed there were still plenty of explosions to go around.

Throughout December, peaking during Christmas and New Year’s, an array of glittery explosions fill the streets of, and skies above, Costa Rican neighborhoods, increasing the danger posed by vendors of illegal explosives.

According to the Public Security Ministry statement, police raided a shop in Desamparados, in southern San José, which had been closed by the local municipality but continued to sell explosives. Authorities seized 108 sticks of dynamite and 12,020 firecrackers that, if accidentally ignited, could have destroyed a nearby home and restaurant.

Police also seized more than 8,000 firecrackers near the border with Nicaragua, the statement said – most allegedly being smuggled into the country by a Costa Rican by the last name of Jarquín.

The only pyrotechnic devices permitted under Costa Rica’s Arms Law are non-explosive items such as Roman candles. Firecrackers of any size are not allowed, the statement said. The Arms Law establishes sentences of as many as 7 years in jail for those convicted of selling explosives to minors or people with disabilities, or those who buy, sell, transport or store explosives without a permit.

Hollywood Couple Meets With Refugees in San José

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt – the Hollywood actors so ubiquitous they’ve been granted the ultimate sign of superstar coupledom, a combined moniker (“Brangelina”) – visited San José on Christmas Day to hand out gifts and meet with Colombian refugees.

Jolie, a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said she came to Costa Rica with a message “for Colombian refugees and the millions of people displaced in Colombia, that the world hasn’t completely forgotten them.

“We had a marvelous Christmas with the Costa Rican people and with the Colombian refugee families with whom we met,” she added.

Jolie and Pitt, who have three children, visited small businesses such as shops and bakeries created by some of the estimated 10,500 Colombian refugees living here. They also handed out gifts to refugee youth in San José, spoke with families, and met with Costa Rican officials including Labor Minister Francisco Morales, Foreign Relations Vice-Minister Edgar Ugalde, and Governance Vice-Minister Ana Durán.

Jolie indicated the UNHCR’s gratitude to the Costa Rican government and people for their support to the victims of civil conflict.

Jolie’s visit was her second to Latin America in her capacity as Goodwill Ambassador. She visited Ecuador in 2002 and met with Colombian refugees in that country.

-ACAN - EFE

Did Hemorrhagic Dengue Cause Man’s Death?

Costa Rican health authorities are investigating the recent death of a 72-year-old man in Liberia, capital of the northwestern province of Guanacaste. They suspect he may be the first – and presumably the only – victim of hemorrhagic dengue in Costa Rica in 2006.

Cases of dengue, a virus transmitted by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, dropped from 37,000 in Costa Rica in 2005 to just over 11,000 in 2006. However, authorities reported 66 cases of the disease’s more severe variant, hemorrhagic dengue, in 2006, up from 50 the year before.

Two people died of hemorrhagic dengue in Costa Rica in 2005. People who have had dengue before are more susceptible to contracting hemorrhagic dengue.

Authorities are withholding the identity of the possible victim. The man died in Liberia’s Edgardo Baltodano Hospital on Christmas Day.

-ACAN - EFE

International Tennis Tournament Begins in San José

Some of the world’s finest young tennis stars have descended on San José for the 43rd Copa del Café tennis tournament, which this year features 128 participants from around the globe. The tournament began yesterday and concludes Saturday.

José Velasco of Bolivia, ranked 25 among the world’s under-18 male tennis players, and Julia Cohen of the United States, ranked ninth among under-18 women, are among the expected standouts.

Future stars such as Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia have pounded the courts in past editions of the tournament, held at the Costa Rica Country Club in Escazú, west of San José.

For more information on the tournament in English and Spanish, visit www.copacafe.com. 

When you buy any insurance, there is always an “insured amount” or “insured value” stipulated on the policy; this means the maximum amount the insurance company will pay for your claims, under the terms of the contract. For example, if, like many members of our foreign community, you have a Plan 16 medical policy with an insured amount of ¢8 million, that sum is the most the National Insurance Institute (INS) will pay for your health in the policy year. When you renew the policy each year, you wipe the slate clean and start with a fresh ¢8 million.

Plan 16 was designed basically for coverage within Costa Rica, so the insured amount is in local currency, colones. In 1990, when Plan 16 was first available, the insured amount was ¢1 million, which at the time was the equivalent of nearly $12,000 – pretty good coverage in those days, before medical costs escalated.

During the 1990s, as inflation kept eroding the purchasing power of the colón, every few years INS would raise the maximum insured value. The last time was in 1999, to ¢8 million. In January 1999, ¢8 million was equivalent to nearly $30,000, and this still went a long way. Today, however, ¢8 million is equivalent to $15,400, and it simply doesn't cut the mustard if someone has a serious accident or a lingering ailment.

At this time last year, INS announced it was going to “freeze” Plan 16 coverage at a maximum of ¢8 million, but that premiums would continue to rise, following inflation – and in this manner Plan 16 would be phased out. We INS agents were asked to encourage our clients to convert to a new medical policy called INS Medical, in which coverage is stated in U.S. dollars and which has lower deductibles and other advantages over Plan 16, making it an intelligent choice. This still stands – INS Medical is still the best choice for most people.

But INS has just flip-flopped about Plan 16. For 2007, it has increased the maximum insured amount to ¢10 million (this will be done automatically, i.e., those people who had ¢8 million in 2006 will get ¢10 million as of Jan. 1, 2007), and the premiums, in colones, will increase an average of 25%.

What happened? Early in 2006, we heard unofficially that INS was working on a new type of medical policy called seguro médico flexible (flexible medical insurance). In August, INS invited a select group of agents – including yours truly – to a conference about the new product. What it outlined was no better than Plan 16 and a far cry from INS Medical. So the assembled agents gave their opinion, and we believe that is why INS “killed” the flexible project and are back to sprucing up Plan 16 – which, as I have said, is quite inferior to INS Medical.

Claim Procedures

Starting in 2005, INS changed the usage of medical insurance cards. Previously, people who needed a minor treatment would select an affiliated doctor from a list. After the treatment, they would proffer their INS insurance card, which would take care of 70-80% of the bill, and they would pay only the deductible (20-30%) to the doctor. For larger, more expensive ailments, doctors would want to receive their money up front, so they would find 1,001 excuses why they couldn't accept the card, and the patient would have to pay the entire bill, then do the paperwork to claim for reimbursement and wait a month or two to get his or her money from INS.

From the standpoint of INS, this had three notable disadvantages: they were processing mountains of claims and – incredibly – not even INS bureaucrats like paperwork; some doctors made medical mountains out of molehills, and were brazenly overcharging INS for the treatments they administered; and as it was easy to use the INS card for minor ailments and purchases, lots of people were abusing the insurance – I even heard of people using their INS cards to buy dental floss!

So, in 2005, INS changed the use of the card. Now, if someone has a serious medical situation, they should instruct their doctor to obtain from INS a “preauthorization,” which means that the medic and INS agree on a price, and then the patient can use his or her card to pay the lion's share of the bill – only the deductible has to be settled. For minor expenses, the patient has to pay the bills and then prepare and present the paperwork for the claim, and wait for reimbursement. This, for dental floss, is hardly worthwhile.

In this manner, INS solved the three problems it was experiencing and, from the standpoint of an organization not known for being service-oriented, everything was hunky-dory. Clients with minor ailments are not so happy, because they can no longer use their INS cards and their paperwork has increased. But for clients who need major treatment – which is basically what medical insurance is for – the benefits of the change become obvious: they will not be overcharged and can use their INS cards to cover most of the cost.

Contact David Garrett at 233-2455 or info@InsuranceCostaRica.info. The purpose of this column is to give the reader a better understanding of insurance in Costa Rica. The opinions and viewpoints expressed are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Insurance Institute (INS).