THE signing of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law will not produce results overnight as the P40-billion gap in the funding, including lack of health-care manpower, must also be addressed, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said on Thursday.
“Just because the President [Duterte] signed it yesterday [February 20], you can already see [the result] like magic!…Tomorrow all barangays [will have] sprouting health centers like mushrooms. It’s not gonna happen like that,” Duque pointed out to the media in a press briefing at the DOH Central Office in Manila.
Duque also admitted there is also shortage of health workers at the moment.
He earlier disclosed that only 50 percent of barangays have functional barangay health units. However, under the UHC, there will be one barangay health unit for every 3,000 to 4,000 patients and one city or rural health unit for every 20,000 patients.
The health chief said that for its first year of implementation, UHC would need a funding requirement of P257 billion, but was appropriated only with P217 billion under the proposed national budget for 2019.
“This [UHC] is a work in progress,” he said, as he expressed hope that the agency would be able to meet the challenges.
Current sources for UHC include: DOH budget, Philippine
Health Insurance Corp., funds from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office,
Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and the Medical Assistance for Indigent
Patients (MAIP) program of the DOH. These will also be pooled under PhilHealth
to
leverage the government’s position in purchasing health services.
For his part, Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, one of the principal authors of the Senate version of the measure, said an P18-billion fund was added by the Senate during the bicameral budget deliberations.
“The restoration of the HFEP [Health Facilities Enhancement Program]—we can also include that, and the HRH [Human Resource for Health]. The HFEP is about P15.2 billion and another P4.6 billion for the HRH,” Ejercito said, making a total of P19.8 billion.
Since the period for drafting the law’s implementing rules and regulations immediately follows its signing with public consultations and multisectoral dialogues scheduled in the coming months, Ejercito said his campaign “will take a back seat.”
“This law is my crowning glory,” Ejercito told the media.
‘Sin’ taxes
To ensure the implementation of this comprehensive and long-term reform, the DOH is also actively working for higher excise taxes on both tobacco and alcohol.
The agency seeks the support of all legislators who made UHC possible to also advocate for the passage of these twin landmark health reforms of “smart taxes for health.”
PhilHealth CEO Dr. Roy Ferrer stressed that the proposal to impose higher sin taxes among tobacco and alcohol products would help sustain the implementation of the UHC.
“In the coming years, with the additional taxes that will be imposed for the cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, [our] projection [is that we can] sustain [this]. Aside from the GAA [General Appropriations Act], the budget coming from the DBM, [the] premium collections [from] PhilHealth and other sources of funds, definitely [we can] sustain this even in the year 2027,” Ferrer said.
Meanwhile, Duque stressed that health is everybody’s business.
“Health systems only work when everyone works together to ensure that no one is left behind,” Duque said, as he thanked legislators and different stakeholders from civil-society organizations, local government units, other national government agencies and international partners in pushing for the UHC Act.
UHC provides the full range of quality health care services—from preventive to promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative—at affordable cost.
It will shift the health system’s current treatment-oriented approach toward a more balanced approach emphasizing prevention and health promotion.