Rod P. Kapunan
6/9-10/2012
It is most gratifying to note that the doctors and medical personnel of the UP-Philippine General Hospital are the ones taking the cudgels in resisting the privatization of government hospitals.
According to Representatives Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna and Angelo Palmones of Agham Party List, the government is seeking the passage of House Bill No. 6099, authored by Bacolod City representative Anthony Golez and Negros Occidental representative Alfredo Maranon III, that would allow the 26 government hospitals to contract loans and grants, and even seal joint ventures to expand or build private rooms for paying patients so they all could be operated independently like any money-making government-owned corporations, thereby justifying the imposition of more budget cuts in government subsidies and services to indigent patients.
Maybe our militant watchdogs in Congress got it wrong. The bill simply seeks to eliminate the costly subsidy by teaching those hospitals "how to fish", and not to beg for funds. The bill would require them to charge patients who could afford, while using those earnings to subsidize who could only avail of the charity ward. Representatives Casiño and Palmones denounced the planned withdrawal of some P4.7 billion in subsidies from 26 of the country's biggest hospitals after it was tentatively approved by the House panel to convert them into government corporations permitted to generate their own funds.
At the surface, there appears to be some sort of wisdom in the logic advanced by the two congressmen. After all, subsidy is a residue of the discredited concept of welfare most prevalent among socialist and neo-socialist states. Aside from costing a heavy burden to the resources of the government, subsidy has often been the source of graft and corruption.
Often, patients who could well afford to pay for their medical bills seek to find a compadre to sponsor them, and that gratuitous accommodation includes not only their room, the best the hospital could offer, and sometimes the medicines. This takes place not only among government hospitals. The well-to-do are able to avail of these benefits and services because of their "connection", thus depriving the poorest of the poor of the program for which it was rightfully legislated.
Instead of scrapping subsidy, that concept should be modified. One must bear it in mind that taxation remains justified, even if at times they are regressive, because people expect something in return for their money. Without that reciprocal obligation, then we would be having a sitting government that is plainly engaged in extortion. In fact, taxes in the name of people's protection and defense have never been fully accepted as valid because that would be tantamount to legalizing a protection racket—no different from what the mobsters are doing.
More than that, there are the so-called "poorest of the poor" as now Ilocos Norte representative Imelda R. Marcos would point it out, who badly need public assistance. Economic inequality is always bound to happen in a system that adheres to free enterprise, and it is in this gray area where government subsidy is needed. Taxation is a sort of indirect equalizer in a social system that can never attain the utopia of absolute equality.
When President Marcos issued decrees creating the Heart Center of the Philippines, the Lungsod Silangan Mental Health Center, the Lungsod ng Kabataan Hospital, the Lung Center of the Philippines and the National Kidney Foundation of the Philippines, he did not have in mind the idea of giving everything for free even to those who could afford such services.
Many of the proponents of welfare failed because their focus of public service was based on universalism and on the egalitarian precepts of socialism. Although it is not a bad idea to provide a universal health care and services, the program tends to escalate, that in the end the program itself is affected. As a result, government hospitals have badly deteriorated. Universal health has become a bottomless well to many of our corrupt officials manning subsidized government agencies. Otherwise, the PGH and the East Avenue Medical Center would not have deteriorated that badly.
Our economic planners failed to anticipate that it is the patient that determines whether he wants to avail of the pay ward or just wants to settle for the charity ward, and people who could afford would always seek the better comfort for himself. If Health Secretary Enrique Ona and the administrators of big government-owned hospitals simply observed this elementary rule, there is no reason why government hospitals would be scouring for funds to sustain themselves. The Heart Center, the Lung Center, the National Kidney Institute are good models of successful government-operated hospitals; that it is possible for them to offer and maintain the same quality of service as those operated by private hospitals at a much cheaper cost.
Besides, the decrees exempting them from the payment of taxes, including payment of customs duties for their importation of hospital equipment for their own use, are more than enough to allow them to rechannel those funds to subsidize poor patients.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph facebook.com).
According to Representatives Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna and Angelo Palmones of Agham Party List, the government is seeking the passage of House Bill No. 6099, authored by Bacolod City representative Anthony Golez and Negros Occidental representative Alfredo Maranon III, that would allow the 26 government hospitals to contract loans and grants, and even seal joint ventures to expand or build private rooms for paying patients so they all could be operated independently like any money-making government-owned corporations, thereby justifying the imposition of more budget cuts in government subsidies and services to indigent patients.
Maybe our militant watchdogs in Congress got it wrong. The bill simply seeks to eliminate the costly subsidy by teaching those hospitals "how to fish", and not to beg for funds. The bill would require them to charge patients who could afford, while using those earnings to subsidize who could only avail of the charity ward. Representatives Casiño and Palmones denounced the planned withdrawal of some P4.7 billion in subsidies from 26 of the country's biggest hospitals after it was tentatively approved by the House panel to convert them into government corporations permitted to generate their own funds.
At the surface, there appears to be some sort of wisdom in the logic advanced by the two congressmen. After all, subsidy is a residue of the discredited concept of welfare most prevalent among socialist and neo-socialist states. Aside from costing a heavy burden to the resources of the government, subsidy has often been the source of graft and corruption.
Often, patients who could well afford to pay for their medical bills seek to find a compadre to sponsor them, and that gratuitous accommodation includes not only their room, the best the hospital could offer, and sometimes the medicines. This takes place not only among government hospitals. The well-to-do are able to avail of these benefits and services because of their "connection", thus depriving the poorest of the poor of the program for which it was rightfully legislated.
Instead of scrapping subsidy, that concept should be modified. One must bear it in mind that taxation remains justified, even if at times they are regressive, because people expect something in return for their money. Without that reciprocal obligation, then we would be having a sitting government that is plainly engaged in extortion. In fact, taxes in the name of people's protection and defense have never been fully accepted as valid because that would be tantamount to legalizing a protection racket—no different from what the mobsters are doing.
More than that, there are the so-called "poorest of the poor" as now Ilocos Norte representative Imelda R. Marcos would point it out, who badly need public assistance. Economic inequality is always bound to happen in a system that adheres to free enterprise, and it is in this gray area where government subsidy is needed. Taxation is a sort of indirect equalizer in a social system that can never attain the utopia of absolute equality.
When President Marcos issued decrees creating the Heart Center of the Philippines, the Lungsod Silangan Mental Health Center, the Lungsod ng Kabataan Hospital, the Lung Center of the Philippines and the National Kidney Foundation of the Philippines, he did not have in mind the idea of giving everything for free even to those who could afford such services.
Many of the proponents of welfare failed because their focus of public service was based on universalism and on the egalitarian precepts of socialism. Although it is not a bad idea to provide a universal health care and services, the program tends to escalate, that in the end the program itself is affected. As a result, government hospitals have badly deteriorated. Universal health has become a bottomless well to many of our corrupt officials manning subsidized government agencies. Otherwise, the PGH and the East Avenue Medical Center would not have deteriorated that badly.
Our economic planners failed to anticipate that it is the patient that determines whether he wants to avail of the pay ward or just wants to settle for the charity ward, and people who could afford would always seek the better comfort for himself. If Health Secretary Enrique Ona and the administrators of big government-owned hospitals simply observed this elementary rule, there is no reason why government hospitals would be scouring for funds to sustain themselves. The Heart Center, the Lung Center, the National Kidney Institute are good models of successful government-operated hospitals; that it is possible for them to offer and maintain the same quality of service as those operated by private hospitals at a much cheaper cost.
Besides, the decrees exempting them from the payment of taxes, including payment of customs duties for their importation of hospital equipment for their own use, are more than enough to allow them to rechannel those funds to subsidize poor patients.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph facebook.com).
