Senate won’t give PhilHealth additional subsidy

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito confirmed the plans of senators not to give the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) additional subsidy after the agency declared savings in 2024.

Ejercito supported the earlier pronouncement of Senate President Francis Escudero that the Senate is not inclined to give PhilHealth additional subsidy under the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025.

“The senators plan not to give it (PhilHealth) because last year there was a subsidy but they declared it as savings,” Ejercito said in an interview yesterday over dzBB.

Escudero said that while PhilHealth could receive a subsidy to provide health insurance coverage and ensure health care services, the Senate will not increase it.

He said senators would deliberate as he questioned why PhilHealth has too many excess funds, including the P89.9 billion that was supposed to be transferred to the national treasury.

The Supreme Court stopped the transfer by issuing a temporary restraining order which some senators described as “a big win for the Filipino people.”

“Why is it that PhilHealth has so much extra money and there are so many of our kababayans who do not benefit from the PhilHealth benefits? This is something that should be answered and clarified because unfortunately if we increase the PhilHealth fund again, they will not use it,” Escudero said.

The Senate President added that whether PhilHealth would get government subsidy from next year’s budget is “something we will look at because if they don’t spend it on the benefit, let’s just spend it on paying the premium to expand PhilHealth’s coverage.”

“If we don’t spend and use it, we lose about four percent based on the inflation per year. So that’s equivalent to P20 billion a year. Because they didn’t spend that in the year 2024, as of Jan. 1, they’ve lost about P20 billion that could have been bought, paid for, spent by that PhilHealth fund,” Escudero noted.

“Each agency’s budget is reviewed for its absorptive capacity,” Escudero noted. “Isn’t it a bit audacious to ask for a bigger budget next year when they haven’t even fully utilized their current budget?”

Ejercito pointed out that PhilHealth was a vital agency in implementing the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law, which automatically enrolls all Filipino citizens in the National Health Insurance Program and prescribes complementary reforms in the health system.

“I think they want to rub elbows with the banker, they think they are a private corporation making eco managers famous with reserve funds. That’s not how we should be spending that. UHC is a 10-year program, we are now entering the 5th year, the case rates should have been adjusted, I think they have to be reoriented or if there is a need to revamp… leadership,” he said.

While he acknowledged birth pains in the implementation of the UHC Law, Ejercito is also eyeing to call for an oversight committee on UHC as he expressed belief that the problem is with implementation.