SENATE deputy majority leader Joseph Victor Ejercito yesterday called for the replacement of Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) president Emmanuel Ledesma for his alleged failure to fully implement the Universal Healthcare (UHC) Law.
Ejercito, an author and sponsor of the UHC Law, said he is disappointed with the meager amount of PhilHealth’s contribution to patients’ hospital bills amid its announcement of billions in excess funds.
As an example, Ejercito showed during the Kapihan sa Senado media forum patient’s hospital bill in the Philippine General Hospital, amounting to P270,894 but the deductible amount shared by PhilHealth was only P32,964, or only 12 percent of the total bill.
He said another patient in a private hospital had a total bill of more than P1.5 million while PhilHealth’s share was only P10,700 or 0.69 percent.
He said other bills reflected a PhilHealth contribution of 18.58 percent, 8.28 percent, and 4.73 percent.
What surprised him even more, Ejercito said, was when PhilHealth shared only P15,120 or 1.03 percent from a patient’s bill in a public hospital that amounted to over P1.4 million.
Ejercito said he will ask PhilHealth to explain the very low deductions in patients’ hospital bills when the agency’s proposed budget for next year is tackled in the plenary.
“I need an explanation [from PhilHealth] why this is happening to our beneficiaries, claimants. 1 percent, 12 percent is way too low when our target is to lower the out-of-pocket expenses of patients,” he said in Filipino.
He said PhilHealth should ease the burden of the people as being hospitalized means big expenses due to costly hospital rooms, medicines, and doctors’ professional fees, among others.
“We are boasting of a Universal Healthcare and PhilHealth will shoulder only a small amount of the bill? … The UHC Law should have been felt by the people. PhilHealth is not living up to the expectations of the people in the Universal Healthcare Act),” he said.
Ejercito said PhilHealth has declared it has excess funds and yet several hospitals have not yet been paid.
He said PhilHealth should not act as a “savings bank or a financial institution” that needs to have big earnings when its funds are coming from the members’ contributions and yearly government subsidy.
He is also wondering how PhilHealth computes its share in patients’ hospital bills.