For millions of Argentines living with disabilities, decades-old specialized therapy and support programs have long been more than just social services—they have been lifelines, opening doors to independence, connection, and personal growth that many could not access anywhere else. For 34-year-old Analía Celis, who lives with cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability, these programs transformed daily life: sports therapy softened the rigid muscle tension that limited her movement, baking gave her a tangible sense of self-reliance she had never known, and painting alongside peers allowed her to build connections when speech was a struggle. Today, that lifeline is being pulled away, a casualty of President Javier Milei’s sweeping austerity agenda that has gutted core funding for disability services across the country.
Since taking office in late 2023, Milei, whose libertarian, small-government platform has positioned him as a leading figure in the global conservative backlash against liberal institutional norms, has frozen all federal payments to nonprofits and organizations that deliver therapeutic, educational, and social support to people with disabilities. Argentina is home to an estimated 5 million people living with disabilities, and advocates and family members warn that the funding freeze has rapidly dismantled a social safety net once considered robust by Latin American regional standards, stripping vulnerable people of the structured, personalized care they rely on.
The financial strain has pushed many service providers to the edge of collapse. Martín Lucero, legal representative for Andar, a Buenos Aires-area nonprofit that operates a day support center for people with disabilities in Moreno, says his organization has been forced to sell off vehicles just to cover basic utility costs. Two months ago, Andar cut its free customized shuttle service that brought Celis and dozens of other participants to the center each day, leaving them stranded without access to programming. “The only solution can’t be cutting off a person from a space they need for their development,” Lucero said. “This is a political choice.”
The nation’s disability support system has long operated on revenue generated by billing state-run insurance programs for services. For years, irregular government payments and reimbursement rates that failed to keep up with Argentina’s sky-high inflation left nonprofit providers with mounting debts. But six months ago, the flow of government funds stopped entirely, turning financial strain into a full-blown crisis. To cut costs, providers have slashed staff sizes, delayed employee salaries, reduced meal portions for program participants, and cut operating hours. While there is no official count of shuttered centers, disability rights groups estimate that up to 50 facilities have closed this year alone, many in remote rural provinces.
At Andar, which serves 150 participants on its sprawling, park-like campus that includes a soccer field, community vegetable garden, and professional commercial kitchen where participants earn a small monthly wage through a catering service, roughly 30% of enrollees can no longer travel to the center. Therapists warn that without consistent, structured programming, people with disabilities can experience rapid regression in skills and quality of life. For Celis, that regression has already been devastating. Her 74-year-old mother, Clementina Tabares, now has to provide round-the-clock care for her daughter, forcing her to skip her own critical medical appointments. “She wakes up three or four times every night screaming that she wants to go to the farm,” Tabares said, describing how Celis now spends all day in bed, the window covered with a blanket to block sunlight, with rock music blaring to calm her frequent agitation. “She’s shutting herself away. That scares me.”
For 28-year-old Roman Pontecorvo, an Andar participant who found a love for acting through the center’s programs, the potential closure of Andar would leave him with nothing. “I want to tell the president to look at us, to really see us, to come here and meet us,” Pontecorvo said. “If Andar closes, many of us will be left with nothing. It will be total chaos.”
Disability rights advocates have pushed for a straightforward solution to the crisis: enacting a disability emergency law passed by Congress last year that would boost benefits that have lost 30% of their value to inflation and guarantee stable funding for service providers through 2026. But Milei has blocked the law from taking effect, arguing that its 0.35% of GDP fiscal cost would undermine his administration’s landmark achievement of a national budget surplus, Argentina’s first after decades of persistent deficits. Milei vetoed the bill last year, saying “using noble causes, they pass laws that drive the nation into bankruptcy,” but Congress overrode his veto. The dispute is now tied up in court, where the government is appealing a May 18 federal court ruling that ordered the administration to unfreeze payments within 72 hours to comply with the existing law. The judge’s ruling noted that “the interruption of treatment generates setbacks in development” for people with disabilities.
Milei has instead introduced a sweeping new bill that would formally dismantle the existing system of federal funding for therapeutic centers, shifting responsibility to private insurance companies and provincial governments to negotiate payment rates with providers. The legislation would also impose strict new eligibility restrictions, ending federal subsidies for all disabled people except those living below the poverty line with “complete” and “permanent” disabilities. The bill has faced intense backlash from rights groups and is still awaiting debate in Congress.
The Milei administration has framed its cuts to disability programs as part of a broader effort to root out fraud and waste in federal bureaucracy, echoing the anti-spending rhetoric of ideological allies like the former Trump administration in the United States. Months ago, Argentine officials amplified claims of widespread fraud, even highlighting a bizarre case where a dog’s X-ray was allegedly submitted to falsely secure disability benefits, echoing a similar false claim by billionaire Elon Musk that millions of dead Americans were receiving U.S. Social Security checks. But authorities have never presented evidence of systemic, widespread abuse, and the scale of existing fraud remains unconfirmed.
Instead, the scandal that has emerged from the disability agency centers on high-level corruption accusations tied to Milei’s own inner circle. Leaked recordings from last year captured Diego Spagnuolo, the former director of Argentina’s national disability agency Andis, alleging that Karina Milei, the president’s sister and closest senior adviser, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies seeking federal public contracts. Milei has denied any wrongdoing on his sister’s behalf. As auditing of the agency ramped up, the administration shut down Andis entirely, laying off hundreds of workers and folding disability programs into the Ministry of Health.
While even critics of the old system acknowledge that greater transparency and anti-fraud reform are needed, they argue that the Milei administration’s goal is not to improve the system but to eliminate it entirely. Last year, the Civic Association for Equality and Justice successfully sued the government after Andis suspended 140,000 disability benefit checks over unproven fraud suspicions. Celeste Fernandez, the group’s co-director, noted that most of the suspended beneficiaries only missed required in-person assessments because the nearest assessment office was hundreds of miles from their homes, and many could not travel or understand the complicated summons. “Dismantling institutions without building alternatives leaves people abandoned,” Fernandez said. “The government is not carrying out a serious reform. It is simply emptying the system.”