President Benigno Aquino III’s signing into law of the National Health Insurance Act is promised as a breakthrough by proponents of universal health coverage since it would expand the government’s health program to include the poorest of the poor.
The health act would cover those who cannot afford to pay the monthly premiums of PhilHealth, an agency which politicians ride on to give away its cards to indigents in exchange for votes during elections.
But according to proponents like Sen. Pia Cayetano, the new Health Insurance Act would live up to the government’s promise to protect the poorest of the poor by having taxpayers pay for the insurance coverage of the indigents.
This is where it gets tricky.
Until the implementing rules are issued, we can only speculate on what this law would entail for those who can at least afford to pay a modicum of treatment and services at private hospitals as well as the very rich, who may be mandated by law to give their share for their less fortunate brethren.
The Philippines is not the only country with problems in implementing universal health coverage.
The so-called “Obamacare” health coverage program being deliberated in the US Congress was an offshoot of the program pursued by the Bill Clinton administration and involves the rich paying more to cover the health services needs of indigent Americans.
Left wing documentary film maker Michael Moore has produced the film “Sicko” which condemns the abuses of the health insurance companies while singing paeans to the universal health system being implemented by communist Cuba.
Elsewhere around the world, oil rich countries like Brunei and Kuwait can afford to have giving its citizens including overseas workers like Filipinos the best medical care financed by the sultanate while other countries like the United Arab Emirates send their citizens to other countries to avail of the best medical services offered by First World countries all paid for by them.
But the Philippines doesn’t have that luxury.
So one of the funding sources identified by the government is sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes—an irony to be sure—and the wealthy who make money off the middle class and should be mobilized to give more for the country if that is at all possible in this capitalist driven economy of ours.
The law’s intentions are quite noble as it is far-reaching but how the government and the Filipinos can make it work is another story altogether. But we have to, if only to make sure that all of us can benefit from it.