It is sad that Congress and the DOF are sacrificing proper funding to create a useful health infrastructure and prioritizing pork barrel projects instead (e.g., those farm-to-pocket roads).
Supporting our health infrastructure is more important than any other appropriation that Congress prioritized at the expense of our nation’s health with the insertions made at the conference committee level.
Unless our people are healthy, they cannot contribute to national economic growth.
They will not be as productive as the healthier Thais and Vietnamese in growing rice or manufacturing products.
Roads and bridges, while needed, will be white elephants if people are at home because they are too sick to work. People’s health is national wealth.
Philanthropy Asia Alliance, a unit of Temasek Trust, estimates that 60 million Filipinos experience healthcare poverty.
“Millions live a considerable distance from the nearest clinic, lack sufficient health literacy, and cannot afford the cost of healthcare. This is common in rural areas but also present in urban slums.” I’ve heard from other sources that some 40 percent of Filipinos never see a doctor in their lifetimes.
The latest numbers from Statista tell us that we have a population ratio of one doctor or physician for approximately every 26,000 people. Another website says there is a shortage of doctors and equipment in rural areas and poorer provinces.
Of the 17 key regions of the Philippines, only four regions meet the minimum standards of hospital beds per 1,000 residents.
According to the WHO, life expectancy at birth in the Philippines has worsened by 2.62 years, from 69 years in 2000 to 66.4 years in 2021.
For women, it is 69.9 years, while for men, it is 63.4 years. The lifespan of residents in poorer regions of the Philippines was nearly 10 years shorter than the average life expectancy in richer areas.
Incidentally, I’ve heard that both the Secretary of Health and the current head of PhilHealth are thinking of running for the Senate next year. In supporting the DOF move on PhilHealth funds, they must be looking forward to the day they will be getting their hands on pork funds too.
Sayang. They are in an enviable position to make a difference, but they must be idiots not to see the political gain in making PhilHealth better fulfill its role by 1) paying higher medical premiums to patients, 2) expanding PhilHealth coverage to benefit more people, and 3) promptly reimbursing/paying hospitals and medical doctors.
Without these reforms, there will be continuing significant savings by PhilHealth at the expense of its reputation for good governance.
If PhilHealth’s ability to spend funds at its disposal is dramatically improved, there will be no savings left, and PhilHealth can justifiably demand fund replenishment.
Right now, PhilHealth’s inefficiency and inability to perform its mandate for universal health care has resulted in “excess funds” they just deposit in Landbank or invest in T-bills. That gave DOF a good reason to get those funds deposited in the National Treasury.
Actually, it is in the national interest for BBM to fire the current PhilHealth head, even if he is a close friend.
In a recent congressional hearing, the guy proved his incompetence and inability to visualize the role PhilHealth plays in realizing our dream of having universal health care. It is not just numbers, pesos, and centavos that end up as PhilHealth savings, but how the institution is able to carry out its mandate to finance the need to keep Filipinos healthy.
Someone posted on my Viber group that PhilHealth is not fair with both patients and doctors. Doctors have to pay an accreditation fee based on their annual ITR. Doctors I’ve talked to were forced to pay between P12,000 and P18,000. The sad part is that these doctors won’t be able to recover the amount in professional fees received from PhilHealth because PhilHealth pays minimal fees.
Doctors are forced to accredit themselves with PhilHealth because it is required by hospitals so they can attend to confined patients. PhilHealth is profiting at their expense, a doctor complained to me.
“Some doctors have opted not to be accredited anymore with PhilHealth since we also don’t get compensated fairly and on time.This year, I recently received a fee of P475 as my professional fee for an admission so many years ago—barely enough for gasoline if I were residing far from the hospital. At the same time, PhilHealth has yet to pay our hospital for expenses incurred by patients for COVID admissions during the pandemic. Smaller hospitals are forced to close down.”
Data from Statista shows household out-of-pocket payment for healthcare in the Philippines in 2022 accounted for approximately 44.7 percent of the current health expenditure.
Here is how it looks at the grassroots from a reader of this column who emailed me:
“My daughter was hospitalized in 2019 at ACE Hospital in Dumaguete for pneumonia. She incurred a hospital bill of P85,000, but not surprisingly, PhilHealth did not shoulder the total bill. It is their policy that for a case of pneumonia, the maximum amount to be paid by PhilHealth is P15,000 only. This is a big problem for an ordinary employee like me. So, if your health insurance is PhilHealth and you or a member of your family gets hospitalized, you would become an instant beggar. I have to ask for financial assistance left and right, not to mention loans from lending companies at high-interest rates. What happened to the universal health care law?
Just this year, another of my daughters was confined at Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City for a gastrointestinal problem. Her hospital bill was more or less P45,000. PhilHealth shouldered less than P10,000. If your health insurance is only PhilHealth, the hospital will require you to produce a deposit. Why do we have this kind of health insurance from our government?”
Paki sagot nga, President BBM…
Boo Chanco’s email address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on X @boochanco.