Every citizen is entitled to better healthcare.

This does not imply only having access to a healthcare facility or a doctor, but to medicines as well. After all, without the appropriate pharmacologic treatment (when needed), patients will not get better. Medicines encompass all economies of scale – from class A to E. It is why the access to cheaper and yes, effective, medicines is a RIGHT of every Filipino citizen.

It is why I have always been troubled with the fact that there is a 12% value added tax (VAT) added to the cost of medicines (and healthcare, but that’s a different story altogether). Vaccines, for example, are essential in preventive health care. All of the vaccines in the Philippines are imported. Which means, that unstable dollar to peso exchange accounts for the erratic cost in the purchase of vaccines. Because many infectious diseases are now preventable when vaccines are accessible, all vaccines should not carry 12% VAT. Doing this not only makes immunization more expensive but inaccessible to the poor, the latter of whom are most vulnerable to getting sick and cannot pay for better healthcare.

There is something wrong in our financial system. The institution of the Value Added Tax scheme for healthcare is something that was not well thought of. As a matter of fact, not only has it become a burden for the people, but a dumb idea to begin with. For example, the Department of Health has announced recently several medications which are now VAT exempt. I don’t know how the DoH is able to nitpick on which should and which should not be exempted, as diseases are specific for certain individuals. For example, if a patient with dementia will need a medicine but is not VAT exempted, the patient can either use the senior citizen (SC) or person with disability (PWD) trump card. However, if the patient is neither a SC or PWD (yet), then he/she will need to spend more for a disease that does not include them just because the drug is not VAT exempt. Only the poor suffer from the burden brought upon by VAT.

This begs the question of: how does the government choose which drugs can be VAT exempted and others cannot? How much power does the authorities have over which medicines can be granted VAT exemption? What is the science behind being VAT exempted or not, when it comes to medicines?

Let’s face it. Our healthcare system in both the public and private sector are broken. And while we are all trying to fix it so that we can provide better and affordable health to the Filipinos, the government can begin with a no brainer suggestion where removing all VAT from all medicines that require prescription and vaccines is a big step of the current administration in being serious at providing optimum healthcare to every Juan.