PhilHealth urged to increase member benefits, pay off debts

PhilHealth office. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) needs to manage its finances by using its funds to improve public health benefits and paying off debts to individuals and hospitals instead of focusing on increasing its reserves, a report said on Tuesday.

“It is pure bad fiscal management, that PhilHealth’s policy to continue expanding its treasury operations even as its payables to individuals and hospitals are mounting,” think tank GlobalSource Partners said.

READ: BIZ BUZZ: PhilHealth fund transfer ‘legal’ and ‘efficient,’ says Recto

GlobalSource Partners said the government must focus on making PhilHealth improve member benefits as it seems unreasonable for PhilHealth’s leaders to prioritize profitability and reserve funds when these reserves should be used to enhance benefits or lower member contributions, as mandated by the law.

“Their treasury operations, instead of being used to multiply resources to mitigate the health conditions of Filipinos, are meant to generate more funds that would ultimately be unused,” the report said.

PhilHealth has yet to reply for comment as of this writing.

Looking back, the Department of Finance issued a circular directing PhilHealth to transfer P89.9 billion in unused government subsidies to the national treasury. Of this amount, P20 billion was sent in May to cover emergency allowances for healthcare workers, and an additional P10 billion was transferred on August 21. Another P30 billion is set to be transferred in October, with the remaining P29.9 billion scheduled for November.

No less than Finance secretary Ralph Recto said that PhilHealth’s members’ equity will hit P546.52 billion by the end of the year, noting that its income continues to surpass its expenses.

But for GlobalSource, even the said amount in Philhealth’s reserve funds are not enough to fully meet the needs of universal health care, as decent health care in the country remains inaccessible for many Filipinos.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Solicitor General has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition seeking to stop the remittance of PhilHealth’s “idle funds” citing that the transfer of unused funds was legal.