MARIKINA Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo yesterday asked the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to temporarily suspend premium contributions for all minimum wage earners, whether employed or self-employed, to give them some economic relief.
Quimbo, senior vice chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, filed House Resolution No. 1595 which seeks to tap unspent appropriations allocated to PhilHealth for premium subsidies to provide “immediate financial relief to the country’s economically vulnerable workers.”
She said a temporary suspension will increase disposable income, offering an average monthly “wage boost” of about P400 in Metro Manila for non-agricultural workers.
She noted that in 2022, Congress appropriated P80 billion to subsidize premiums of indigent families, senior citizens, and persons with disability to PhilHealth but the state-run health insurer reported it failed to spend P24 billion from the amount.
In 2023, Quimbo said, the same thing happened as PhilHealth failed to spend P39 billion from the P79 billion Congress appropriated as premiums subsidy.
“The unspent premium of PhilHealth can very well cover the premium contributions of minimum wage earners for at least a year since in 2022 their premium contribution only amounted to P19.6 billion,” she said.
Quimbo noted that PhilHealth’s financial reserves are expected to reach P463 billion for 2023, marking a 68 percent increase from the previous year, saying the surplus “has accumulated from premiums collected from members, as well as subsidies from Congress that have remained unspent.”
This surplus suggests that PhilHealth can afford to suspend premium contributions for minimum wage earners without compromising its financial stability, she said.
Quimbo noted that the unspent funds, originally designated for the health coverage of senior citizens and the poorest segments of the population, “highlight an opportunity to redirect resources temporarily to alleviate the financial burden on minimum wage earners.”
Quimbo’s resolution seeks to reassess PhilHealth’s benefit packages and the premium contribution rates as provided by the Universal Health Care Law.
She said the temporary suspension “is not just about providing short-term economic relief but also about initiating a comprehensive review of PhilHealth’s benefits and contribution structure.”
“The goal is to expand health benefits for all members and potentially reform the contribution structure, or even to possibly eliminate premiums for minimum wage earners and self-employed individuals earning the equivalent of minimum wages,” she added.
The resolution seeks to design benefit packages focused on illness prevention and improved hospitalization support, aiming to make healthcare spending more efficient and rational, potentially leading to more sustainable PhilHealth contributions and government appropriations.
“The aim of the review is to have benefit packages that are designed to prevent illnesses and to provide more support when hospitalized. In the long run, it is cheaper to prevent than to cure,” she said. “In the end, we can have a more rational spending on health care. This will boil down to a more rational amount of PhilHealth contributions by our workers, as well as annual appropriations from Congress.”
