PSA: PH health spending rose to 5.9% of GDP in 2023

The country’s spending on health as a share of the economy rose to its highest level in two years in 2023, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), driven in part by an aging population and rising health-care costs.

Preliminary PSE data showed that national health expenditure increased by 17 percent to P1.44 trillion in 2023, which is equivalent to 5.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), up from the revised 5.6 percent in 2022.

“Factors such as inflation, an aging population and rising chronic diseases likely drove this increase,” said Security Bank chief economist Robert Dan Roces.

READ: 30-year study: Households, not gov’t, shoulder bulk of health spending

With this, Roces said that higher health-care costs may strain household budgets, impacting consumption and economic growth.

“In the long run, an inflationary environment, health care spending gets a smaller allocation in the budget of the consumer, favoring instead spending on other items such as food,” Roces said.

Out-of-pocket payments by Filipino households accounted for the largest share of health-care spending at 44.4 percent in 2023, slightly lower than the 44.6 percent in 2022.

Government schemes and compulsory health-care contributions, meanwhile, accounted for just 42.6 percent of current health spending in 2023, lower than the 45.5 percent previously.

Posting a significant increase were voluntary health-care payments, which includes life and nonlife insurance and health maintenance organizations.

These accounted for 13 percent of the total spend, significantly higher than the 9.8-percent share in 2022. In absolute terms, spending from this sector surged by 44.6 percent to P161.35 billion last year from P111.62 billion previously.