Collect extra tax to fund scheme, experts advise

Health advocates yesterday advised the government to collect additional tax and use this extra money to support the national healthcare scheme. They also suggested that the three available schemes be merged together so every citizen has equal access to medical benefits.
If personal income tax is increased, then people should no longer have to contribute to the universal health scheme, which is run by the National Health Security Office (NHSO) and the social security benefit run by Social Security Office (SSO).
This proposal came after several experts discovered that there was a vast difference in the healthcare services provided by the three national schemes, namely the NHSO, the SSO and the Civil Servant Medical Benefit (CSMB).
According to prominent health advocate Jon Ungpakorn, people who have registered with CSMB do not need to pay anything in order to access medical services, while those registered with NHSO and SSO need to pay Bt30 and Bt750 respectively.
Instead of having people contribute to different healthcare schemes, Jon suggested that all three of them should be merged and funded by the extra income tax.
He also suggested that tax collected from people for health security should depend on each person’s income. Hence, contributions from those earning more should be higher, Jon said.
He was speaking at the “Decade of People Participation for National Health Care Scheme” seminar organised by the Network of People for National Health Security at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, which was attended by up to 1,000 people from civic groups, health advocates and local authorities.
The government has been spending up to Bt200 billion per year, or about 3 per cent of the gross domestic product, on medical services for more than 60 million people. Of this, some Bt100 billion is allocated for the 48 million members of the NHSO, about Bt70 billion is spent on providing medical benefits for 6 million members of the CSMB and some Bt30 billion is spent to provide care for 9 million people.
Deunden Nikomborirak, a director of the Thailand Development Research Institute, said she backed Jon’s idea of collecting extra tax from people to support the healthcare schemes, adding that this will also help the authorities be careful with the funds.
She also suggested that the government set up a neutral agency to examine government expenditure on these health schemes and report directly to the Parliament.