MANILA, Philippines — The proposal to reduce the contribution rates of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) members should go through Congress, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said, as he urged the state insurer to simplify case rates and boost package benefits.
During the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum yesterday, Recto said it is best to leave such a decision to lawmakers amid calls to slash contribution rates of PhilHealth members.?
“It is always safer if we leave it up to the law. In the Universal Health Care Law, you can supposedly reduce the rate, but it was not stated clearly how,” Recto said.
“So it’s better if Congress does it. If they think PhilHealth has so much money, then they can reduce the rate,” he added.?
PhilHealth members are paying a five percent premium rate as mandated by the Universal Health Care Act.?Lawmakers have been questioning PhilHealth for being awash in cash and yet Filipinos are forced to pay high premiums for health insurance.
Recto argued that the problem right now is that the state health insurer is receiving so much subsidies from the government that it cannot actually spend.
However, the finance chief also said that PhilHealth should not be forced or pressured to spend all its resources as doing so, without thorough study, could result in insurance fraud.
“We want PhilHealth to spend the money correctly. But you cannot do that overnight. You have to do it slowly and President Marcos has already instructed PhilHealth how to go about it,” Recto said. ?Recto also reiterated his earlier stand that he prefers that PhilHealth improve on benefit packages to reduce out-of-pocket expenses of Filipinos. ?But he also urged the state insurer to simplify the roughly 9,000 case rates or the type of illnesses that PhilHealth is covering.
“That’s actually a lot of variables. Maybe we can reduce that. It can be simplified and that will go a long way in improving their packages,” Recto said.
Several groups haveasked the Supreme Court to stop the impounding of P89.9 billion in PhilHealth funds to finance this year’s unprogrammed appropria- tions – mostly congressional pork barrel projects.
The petitioners want the SC to declare as unconstitutional the circular issued by Recto for the impounding of the funds, as well as the provision in the 2024 Gen- eral Appropriations Act, in- serted during the bicameral conference, on which the circular was based.
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