Lacson pushes full, proper implementation of UHC Act
STA. ROSA CITY, Laguna – FORMER Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson on Saturday pushed for the full and proper implementation of the Universal Health Care Act, so the Philippines can have a barangay-level health care system that at least approximate the efficient health care system in Cuba.
Lacson said this can be done by ensuring the proper funding of the UHC Act, such that it will cover all Filipinos in all barangays – even as he said the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) may not be able to give 100 percent free health benefits to Filipinos.
“You know me as a watchdog of the budget. I scrutinize it to help make sure that the laws we pass like the UHC, Free Tertiary Education Act, and other laws passed by Congress do not get paralyzed due to lack of funding,” he said in Filipino at the press conference of the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas senatorial slate here.
“We want to make sure the UHC Act covers all barangays. When we are stuck at the low end, we are just having pilot programs in selected barangays. But when we go to full implementation, we cover all barangays,” he added.
Lacson said the Philippines may want to approximate the health care system in Cuba, where each block has a health center or clinic, such that residents need not seek health care because the clinic goes to them.
While he said the Philippines may not match this efficiency as it is much larger than Cuba, it should at least get cues from Cuba’s system.
“We may not replicate Cuba because we are much larger than Cuba, but we should at least strive to approximate because health is important to us. Here in the Philippines, if you are rich and you get sick, you get poor. But if you are poor and you get sick, you’re as good as dead. That is the reality we must face to solve the health problem in our country,” he added.
Meanwhile, Lacson said PhilHealth may not be able to give 100 percent free health benefits to all Filipinos at this time, based on the data from PhilHealth itself.
He said PhilHealth is subsidized by government through the national budget to augment the premiums paid by paying members – but not all Filipinos who avail of PhilHealth benefits pay the premiums, while seniors are exempted from paying membership dues.
“What we need is the ful implementation of the UHC and we should find out how much PhilHealth needs to cover, if not 100 percent of health care, at least to expand the cases it can cover,” he said.
