[The health system in Colombia 1945-2020: between reality and the social imaginary]

This essay describes the main social, political, and economic world events between 1919 and 1993 that encompassed the development of social health protection in Colombia. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles, conceived at the end of World War I, created the International Labor Organization. After the Great Depression in 1929 and the World War II in 1939, followed a period of economic growth known as the Welfare State (circa 1945), ending with the world oil crisis in 1973, from which it is believed to have emerged Neoliberalism. China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) are also studied as non-capitalist social organization systems. In Colombia, social health protection began in 1945 with the creation of the Ministry of Health and Social Security, followed by the National Health System in 1976, and more recently, the General Social Security System for Health in 1993, which some call a neoliberalist formula that unchained social regression, which remains up for debate.