{"id":203131,"date":"2019-02-20T05:25:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T10:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=203131"},"modified":"2019-02-20T05:25:28","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T10:25:28","slug":"universal-healthcare-can-be-implemented-gradually-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/20\/universal-healthcare-can-be-implemented-gradually-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal healthcare can be implemented gradually: Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Panelo also assured that the government can find other ways to source funds for its implementation. (Photo<\/a>: PTV\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang on Wednesday said it is open to the possibility that Universal Health Care (UHC) may be implemented \u201cgradually\u201d without revenue from higher tobacco excise tax.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said while Congress has yet to draft a final bill raising tobacco taxes, the executive can make do with the PHP3.8 trillion budget for 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cKung wala pang pera, di<\/em>\u00a0we\u2019ll have to\u2026kumbaga kung ang\u00a0<\/em>project\u00a0mo ay<\/em>\u00a010 projects in one year,\u00a0ay kung di mo naman kayang pondohan ay medyo i-reduce mo muna<\/em>\u00a0(If we don\u2019t have money yet, we will, let\u2019s say, if you have 10 projects in one year and can\u2019t fund it, you can reduce costs first),\u201d Panelo said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Funds for the UHC program will be sourced from the incremental sin tax collections, charity fund from Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, income from the Philippine Gaming Corporation, premium contribution of members, annual appropriations of the Department of Health (DOH), and government subsidy to PhilHealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cPagkakasyahin muna natin\u00a0<\/em>until such time\u00a0dumating yung pondo<\/em>\u00a0(We can try to make it fit until such time that he funds from excise tobacco tax arrive),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Panelo also assured that the government can find other ways to source funds for its implementation.<\/p>\n

\u201cGradual\u00a0ang<\/em>\u00a0implementation (Implementation is gradual) but there are many ways to augment their resources,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure our government will know how to source funds in accordance with the Constitution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

President Rodrigo R. Duterte is expected to sign the Universal Health Care bill into law on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Both houses of the Congress ratified the bicameral conference committee report on the UHC on Dec. 10, 2018.<\/p>\n

Duterte earlier said he wanted to provide affordable, if not free, medicines and healthcare to the poor under the program.<\/p>\n

He has also certified the passage of the UHC as urgent to make accessible a comprehensive, and quality health care program for all Filipinos and immediately enroll them in the National Health Insurance Program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang on Wednesday said it is open to the possibility that Universal Health Care (UHC) may be implemented \u201cgradually\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":196177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}