Universal healthcare is zero balance billing

During his fourth State of the Nation Address on July 28, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. announced the implementation of the zero balance billing policy or what he calls the “Bayad Na Bill Mo” program (“Your bill has been paid” program).” According to Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa, the program requires no additional documents or interviews, and all costs, including medicines and professional fees, are fully covered.

- OSCAR P. LAGMAN, JR.

However, The “Bayad Na Bill Mo” program only applies to basic or ward accommodation in the 87 Department of Health (DoH) hospitals nationwide. A patient who opts to be transferred to a private room in a DoH hospital is not entitled to zero balance billing, Neither is a patient confined in the ward of a private hospital.

That is what universal healthcare is supposed to be: zero balance billing. To me, a clearer description of universal healthcare is “no medical billing program.” That is what universal healthcare is in the United Kingdom, and in many European countries, Healthcare is provided by government-owned hospitals and by doctors and other healthcare professionals employed by the government.

But as I had written here before, universal healthcare in the Philippines is still years away. That is because there are only about 27,019 beds in the 87 DoH hospitals. And that number includes beds in semiprivate and private rooms, although they account for a fraction of the total.

Per World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation, there should be 20 hospital beds per 10,000 population. The country’s population in 2019 when universal healthcare was implemented was 110 million. That means there should have been 220,000 hospital beds in 2019. ‘The DoH’s Philippine Health Facility Development Plan places the number of beds in 2020 at approximately 105,000, half of what the WHO says is the ideal ratio.

The WHO had advised our legislators to institute universal healthcare fully in 2030 when the country’s health delivery system — hospitals and primary care clinics — would be capable of servicing it. But the members of the 17% Congress, many of whom were running for reelection, rushed the enactment of a law adopting universal healthcare, RA 11228, so that they could present it in the elections of 2019 as their gift to the Filipino people.