IS THERE ENOUGH MONEY FOR UHC?

current National Health Insurance Act. Once these emerging issues on the UHC bill are already settled and assuming our legislators will be able to fight for the best provisions that will secure the objectives of UHC, the next major hurdle will be on funding. The Department of Health (DoH) estimates that, in the first year alone, an additional P164 billion will be needed to fully implement UHC. So far, only P17 billion can be pooled from PAGCOR and PCSO, which leaves us with a deficit of P147 billion — an amount almost equal to the current budget of the DoH.

Recently, Senate President Sotto was quoted as saying that the UHC bill can be implemented even if the 17th Congress will not be able to pass the pending bills on increasing the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

Meanwhile, the scheduled fuel excise tax increase in 2019 under the TRAIN law has already been suspended. If implemented for a whole year, this will result in a net loss of P26 billion. The approval of the pending general tax amnesty proposal is estimated to just offset the loss due to the suspension of the fuel excise. Aside from the general tax amnesty, only the tobacco and alcohol excise tax bills, and package 2 of TRAIN are pending in Congress — the latter is estimated to be revenue-neutral.

Now where will we get funding for UHC?

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