ACCORDING to Microsoft Co-Pilot, “Universal Health Coverage (UHC) means that all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship”.
In case you have not noticed, the more popular term in the Philippines is “Universal Healthcare” and not “Universal Health Coverage”. What is the difference between the two?
As for me, I like UHC better because it is more measurable and countable. What I mean is that it is easier to count who are covered, and who are not.
In theory, everyone in the Philippines is covered by health insurance, because of a law requiring PhilHealth to provide that service. In reality however, not everyone is actually covered yet, because everyone has to enroll first before they could be covered, and apparently, not everyone has enrolled yet.
PhilHealth is actually the equalizing factor in this equation, because it provides coverage to everyone else who could not afford private health insurance companies.
Generally speaking, all public clinics and hospitals in the Philippines should provide free medical products and services to everyone, including medicines and diagnostics.
As it happens however, most patients of public clinics and hospitals here have to pay for medicines and diagnostics on their own, because of budget constraints on the part of the government.
In some cases, PhilHealth could pay for the medicines and diagnostics of patients if it is part of their hospital bills, but understandably, PhilHealth could also not pay for everything, because of their own budget constraints.
As it stands now, UHC is more of a theory rather than a reality. It is more of a dream, rather than an actuality.
As for me however, it is not an impossible dream, if only the government could put UHC on the top of its budget allocations, and if only the government could reduce or remove the massive corruption that is responsible for draining our tax monies.
In the meantime, the government could look into some alternative solutions such as promoting the use of high-quality generic medicines that could pass national standards just like the branded medicines.
The government could also look into the outsourcing of some services to private sector providers who are more efficient in providing pay-per-use or rent-to-own machines and equipment./PN
