A SENATOR and a former congressman – Joseph Victor G. Ejercito and Harry Roque, respectively – are on Cloud 9 because the Senate has passed on third and final reading the Universal Health Care bill, which will provide automatic inclusion of all Filipinos in the National Health Insurance Program of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth). As principal authors of the bill, they could earn the massive support of the grateful electorate whenever they run for whatever position in May 2019.
Once the bill is signed by the President into law, all Filipino citizens will be automatically enrolled in PhilHealth, whether as direct contributors or indirect contributors (the government-sponsored indigents and senior citizens, among others).
The funds for the expanded program will be pooled from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), the incremental sin tax collections, and the sugar tax.
“Medical expenses will no longer be a problem because every Filipino will automatically be a member of PhilHealth,” according to Ejercito, who chairs the Senate committee on health and demography.
Under the bill, Filipino residents can avail themselves of primary health care services even without PhilHealth Identification Cards. Those not enrolled in the PhilHealth, once the measure becomes a law, could still benefit from health care services as provided in the General Appropriations Act.
This early, however, the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAP) does not foresee smooth implementation of the new law due to the backlog of PhilHealth obligations. To quote PHAP president Dr. Rustico Jimenez, “Maybe, out of 100 hospitals, around 70 will tell you PhilHealth owes them.”
If even patients themselves are unhappy over health laws, it must be because they are easier said than done, as in the case of an earlier “universal” law, the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008 (RA 9205) – better known as Cheaper Medicines Act – that has not lived up to its promise of cutting prices of medicines within the reach of the public. In 10 years, the law has lowered prices of only about 200 overpriced drugs, mostly nonessential.
The law empowers the President to regulate medicine prices, but to no avail, although it could have fulfilled its promise had it not junked an important provision in the original bill of Cong. Ferjenel Biron creating the Drug Prices Regulatory Board to peg realistic prices of medicines. Instead of the regulatory board, the law has empowered the President – upon recommendation by the Department of Health – to play that role.
It’s this failure to create a regulatory body that has rendered the law ineffective against cartelization among big players in the drug industry. No wonder the Filipino people’s access to essential medicines is at the mercy of profit-greedy transnational drug corporations.
Since the Cheaper Medicines Law is silent about the control of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the marketing, distribution and pricing of medicines, their local competitors look like dwarfs in comparison.
If we are not mistaken, Biron has filed another bill amending the law but to no avail due to strong opposition lobby by the Big Pharma.
Our experience with the Generics Law points an accusing finger at the multinationals that suppress the growth of generic equivalents of branded, expensive drugs. They have somehow succeeded in peddling the false propaganda that cheap generics are impure and therefore ineffective. To this day, generic drugs account for a measly 5 percent of medicines being sold in the Philippines. (hvego31@gmail.com./PN)
