PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. yesterday defended the zero subsidy for Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) in 2025, assuring the public that the state insurance firm has enough funds to deliver health services.
The President, in an interview, said PhilHealth has reserves of around P500 billion which could be used even if it has zero subsidy for next year. He said these reserve funds have not been used in the past years.
“The PhilHealth has sufficient budget to do all of the things that they want to do,” Marcos said.
The President said that in the last two years, medical services covered by PhilHealth have expanded and its budget allocations had also been increasing yearly.
“Ang problema ngayon sa PhilHealth, hindi tungkol sa pagbigay ng serbisyo, hindi sa pagbigay ng insurance sa insurance cover… ang problema na kulang sila sa budget kaya hindi sila makakapag-alaga ng tao (PhilHealth’s problem now is not about providing services, not about giving insurance cover …The problem that they do not have enough budget to take care of the people),” he said.
“The problem, if you look at it, if you look at reports, with all the new services of PhilHealth, with all the payments being given by PhilHealth, is the system is clogged,” he said in Filipino.
The President also said releasing funds or payments allotted for specific services is actually easy but “the processing capacity” is the problem.
This is also why some people would queue up in PhilHealth offices to file their claims, he said, adding this makes the digitization of the state insurance firm and its records urgent.
SURPLUS
Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa reiterated the state-run health insurer has enough funds to continue with its operations.
“Those that claim that PhilHealth has no funds are wrong. They have a surplus of P150 billion,” said Herbosa.
“PhilHealth can surely provide the benefits because they have surplus funds from last year,” he added.
Herbosa said P150 billion in surplus funds is way over the necessary subsidy funding for 2025.
The subsidy is used to cover the premium of indirect contributors, such as the poor, senior citizens, and unemployed.
“Our subsidy allocated P5,000 per indirect contributor. Our indirect contributors are around 16 million. If you multiply the two, we would need P80 billion,” he said.
“Surely, PhilHealth can cover the P80 billion subsidy requirement for indirect contributors,” added Herbosa.
Herbosa also said it is not ideal for PhilHealth to have excess funds since its mandate to reimburse the expenditures of accredited hospitals and health facilities for the former’s members.
“The job of PhilHealth is only to cover the expenses of hospitals. If they save money and deposit them in banks, then we have a problem,” he said.
“They should use the funds to pay hospitals so that these hospitals can continuously provide benefits to PhilHealth members,” he said.
MANAGEMENT PROBLEM
At the House, Rep. Jude Acidre (PL, Tingog) slammed fake news peddlers who said Filipinos cannot afford to get sick next year because of the removal of PhilHealth’s subsidy from the 2025 national budget, saying the state health insurer has enough reserve funds to respond to people’s health needs “not only for one year but two years.”
“To the public, the numbers are clear. Health insurance will not stop next year. PhilHealth has enough funds to respond not only for one year but two years,” he said in Filipino.
He also defended the bicameral panel’s decision to reduce PhilHealth’s budget, saying inefficiencies in PhilHealth’s system must first be addressed.
“If you see that the money you gave was not used, why give more to exacerbate an agency’s inefficiency?” he said in Filipino.
Acidre said the funds cut from PhilHealth will go to the Philippine Cancer Center, the improvement and expansion of the National Kidney and Lung Center of the Philippines, specialty centers and regional hospitals.
La Union Rep. Paolo Ortega V said PhilHealth really has a fiscal management problem, saying hospitals always have a hard time collecting reimbursements from PhilHealth, “which pile up over time, severely affecting hospitals’ capacity to operate efficiently.”
Zambales Rep. Jefferson Khonghun said PhilHealth has to resolve its inefficiencies before receiving additional funds, noting that the agency has another P20 billion unutilized Special Allocation Release Order (SARO).
“So that means, PhilHealth has unused funds. So in PhilHealth’s case, adding funds is not a solution to the problems of their programs,” he said. – With Gerard Naval and Wendell Vigilia
