Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles on Thursday said that despite limited financial resources, the Duterte administration would properly implement the Universal Health Care Act, to provide Filipino families proper medical treatment.
“Limited financial resources should not be a hurdle to getting life-saving medical treatment, “medical treatment that is available… but inaccessible. Medical treatment that is available, but unaffordable.
Medical treatment that is available, but beyond the reach of the ordinary Filipino family,” “©”© Nograles said in a statement.
In a related development:
• Former Senate President and returning senatorial candidate Juan Ponce Enrile has brought attention to the financial viability of the recently-signed UHC Act, citing that funds would have to be diverted from infrastructure, education, defense, and other sectors of government spending to bankroll the program.
“This field must be carefully studied. Health care involves money—lots of it and from the public. It will involve the financial capacity of the taxpayers to fund a health care program,” said Enrile, who previously served as secretary of Finance under the administration of then President Ferdinand Marcos.
“They need to get it from other present sources of revenue, so you have to reduce from infrastructure, education, or defense so you can fulfill that program,” Enrile explained, adding: “You have to study all of these and balance the need of the people to have income in their pockets to consume so that the economy will grow and the need of the government to provide services to the people plus investment for infrastructure.”
Speaking to members of the Philippine Rheumatology Association during its 25th Annual Meeting at the SMX Convention Center in Davao City, Nograles said that the concern of the President is for the welfare of the Filipino people.
“Build, Build, Build may be the catchphrase of the government’s infrastructure program, but it could very well capture what this administration has sought to accomplish,” he said. “©
“The President’s objective is to build a society where everyone has opportunities, a society where farmers are given free irrigation and a chance to become more productive; a society where our youth can avail of free college education so they have a chance to get better jobs; a society where everyone can be assured of accessible medical treatment so that every Filipino can lead a long and healthy life,””©the former legislator from Davao said.
Nograles, who supported the passage of the UHCA law when he was the representative of the First District of Davao, said that the government recognized that work had to be done to ensure that the objectives of the law would be met.”©
“Like any law, the positive impact of the UHC Act is contingent on the success of its implementation,” he said. With Macon Ramos-Araneta