He made the statement at a meeting with the health minister, the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), and the House of Representatives` Commission IX here on Wednesday to discuss preparations for national health insurance.
Under the health law number 36 of 2009, the government is required to allocate at least 5 percent of the state budget, excluding personnel salaries for the health sector, he said.
"But in this context, the state budget must be used to meet budget needs from all sectors in a just and proportional way. Therefore, the budget allocation based on the percentage (5 percent) is difficult to realize," he said.
He added if certain sectors receive higher budget allocations the other sectors will have their budget allocations slashed to maintain the percentage of the budget allocations for all sectors at 100 percent.
"For instance, any increase in the state budget must be followed by rising budget allocations for the eduction sector. As a result, the percentage of budget allocations for other sectors will be adjusted," he said.
After all, he said the government will always try as much as it can to raise budget allocations for sectors aimed at improving the people`s social welfare including the health service sector.
He said the Finance Ministry has committed itself to meet budget needs from the health sector by among others transferring fuel subsidy to national health insurance premiums for fee assistance beneficiaries.
"So our commitment to universal health care should not be measured merely from whether or not we have allocated 5 percent of the state budget for the health sector," he said.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
