The Department of Health (DOH) is banking on an improved collection of tobacco excise tax to finance its Universal Health Care (UHC) program.
“Though the fund of the [department] and UHC have increased, it is not enough. The Philippines needs more funds to truly realize the universal health care,” Health Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial said on Tuesday at a news conference.
Aside from making available drugs, particularly maintenance medicines at lower prices, the program seeks to include annual check-up for the estimated 20 million poorest Filipinos, and improve the delivery of health care at the barangay level.
The program also wants to address the lack of medicines and the usual absence of medical personnel in health centers in depressed areas across the country, also added.
Aside for the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam have also recently moved to improve the implementation of their national health-insurance systems, similar to South Korea’s National Health Insurance Corp. funded from government subsidies, contributions and self payments.
At the same news conference, former health secretaries Esperanza Cabral and Enrique Ona supported the appeal of Ubial to the Senate to include the increase in tobacco tax to be part of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), which is currently being deliberated by the Senate.
Representatives of Philippine Medical Association (PMA) handed over to Ubial the petition of about 60 member-organizations of the Sin Tax Coalition who are pushing for the increase in tobacco tax to prevent the rising number of smokers since 2015, and to avert 45 life-threatening illnesses caused by smoking, including lung cancer, chronic lung disease, stroke, heart attack and even illicit drug use.
“When we passed the “sin” tax law in 2012, Congress embraced the twin objectives of raising revenues for health programs and arresting the growing epidemic of life-threatening diseases caused by smoking. Now that we see the prices of cigarettes becoming affordable because of the people’s increasing income and the importance of implementing the All for Health Towards Health for All program that the present administration endorses, we are calling again our beloved senators to act decisively and raise tobacco tax as soon as possible,” Ona said in a separate statement.