I Cant' Expect More Filipinos to Do Proactive Healthcare under the Filipino First Policy

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Presidential Communications Office

Yes, it's almost Christmas, and I expect Filipinos to ignore their health. It's easy to get caught with the symptoms, right? I wrote a Throwback Thursday post where I discussed the wrongness of the slogan, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." This has resulted in the reactive healthcare side, where people avoid seeing the doctor. In the case of the dentist, I remember growing up with the threat of the dentist, such as, "If you eat too many sweets, we will have to go to the dentist." The result was that the dentist and the doctor aren't seen as friends but as boogeymen. 

Midland Sports Rehab


In fact, proactive healthcare is something I'm switching to right now. I had a visit with a cardiologist who put me on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). It was discovered that I had asymptomatic hypertension. The doctor said, "We shall not wait until you come here holding your chest." In fact, Midland Sports Rehab gives this advice:
Many patients rely on reactive care because they feel proactive care is an unnecessary expense. Some believe that if they are not in active pain, they are healthy — or they don’t even consider the pain or health problems they might face in the future without preventative measures.

There are many benefits to proactive care, including preventing future pain, illness, and conditions. But the benefits don’t stop there. Additional benefits include:
  • Prevention of issues – As mentioned, proactive care helps you avoid problems before they even happen. 
  • Save money – Preventing issues before they occur saves money by avoiding extensive treatments or interventions later. By addressing concerns early, you reduce your risk of costly treatments like MRIs, surgeries, or even emergency room visits. 
    • To put this in perspective: in the United States, the average one-night hospital stay costs around $3,045. The average hospital stay is four days — over $12,000 for just four days in the hospital. This doesn’t include doctor’s appointments, specialist visits, or other treatments you may need after your hospitalization. Proactive care is a small investment compared to the cost of waiting for a situation like this to occur. 
  • Early detection – Identifies potential problems before they become severe. 
    • For example: You come to our chiropractor for proactive care. During your exam, adjustment, and treatment, the chiropractor notices your hips are extremely tight and have limited range of motion. If not addressed, this could result in sciatica or chronic pain. But because you came in proactively, you address the problem before it turns into pain.
  • Better outcomes – Early intervention leads to more effective and sustainable health results. 
  • Improved quality of life – Investing in your health helps maintain physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

How I believe the Filipino First Policy is encouraging reactive healthcare among Filipinos, for generations

The Department of Health can talk about the need for proactive healthcare. We can talk a bout check-ups. One can even talk about having dental checkups once a year. As mentioned earlier, people may have grown up thinking of the dentist or doctor as a boogeyman instead of a partner in health. However, I thought about the possibility that the Filipino First Policy has also contributed to Filipinos having a reactive healthcare mindset. As always, the problem isn't the Filipino, but the system that runs the Filipino.

I gave thought to the mixture of escapism and financial difficulties. As I love to discuss it, the Filipino First Policy has left Filipinos with very few job options. Sadly, we still have people who have a very poor understanding of FDI. For example, it's crazy how groups like AGHAM, the IBON Foundation, Gabriela, Kabataan Partylist, and Migrante International continue their rants about how FDI would "destroy the Philippines". I often say that FDI would help the healthcare industry. The retort often goes, "How can you expect Filipinos to afford it?" I talk about supply and demand, then some people decide to hurl insults at me, as if insults would change the laws of economics. 

The real problem is still rooted in supply and demand 

How can you expect Filipinos to be proactive with healthcare when demand exceeds supply? Why is healthcare expensive? It's because there are too many Filipinos and too few healthcare providers. As said, FDI in the healthcare industry could help fill the demand for healthcare. Sure, they can be expensive at first, but you must think of the long term. If there were more healthcare providers, then the demand from Filipinos would greatly lessen over time. What starts with an on-demand thing becomes far more routine over time. More healthcare providers means that the cost of healthcare would decrease over time because, in the long run, manufacturing health equipment would need to be done in the Philippines. Over time, production of healthcare equipment in the Philippines, whether by local investors or FDIs, would also help close the gap between the supply and demand for healthcare equipment. 

In economics, we should always expect that prices decrease when supply is higher than demand, and prices increase when demand is higher than supply. The same can go with why proactive healthcare can be a real problem. It's already bad enough that Filipinos suffer from a shortage of jobs. The job market isn't exempt from the law of supply and demand. We can keep talking about salary increases, but again, a sudden shift in salary would cause sudden inflation. After all, salaries are part of operating expenses. It's not an independent variable. The only feasible way for a salary increase to happen is if the demand for labor increases. However, the Philippines' lack of labor (and choosing Pinoy Pride Economics) caused wages to stagnate. 

A Philippines more open to FDI with reasonable restrictions would eventually force Filipinos to be more proactive with their health. It's because the cost of healthcare would be made more accessible over time with economies of scale, increased salaries through an increase of demand for labor (FDI is part of it), manufacturing of locally produced medical equipment may become a bigger reality in the Philippines, and there may be more clinics open in the Philippines. If healthcare became more accessible, the former norm of reactive healthcare (which often leads to health-destructive escapism) would be replaced with the norm where, "It's not cool to be reactive. Every Filipino is becoming proactive thanks to more healthcare available." 

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