MANILA – PhilHealth president Ricardo Morales disclosed the state of the agency’s revenue might decline by about Php 100-billion in 2020 until 2024 and moved for the postponement of the implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) law.
Morales during a virtual meeting Tuesday with the joint congressional oversight committee on the UHC law chaired by Sen. Bong Go, said “PhilHealth recommends a general delay in the implementation of the UHC and the primary care benefit expansion program.” He said the agency has difficulty in the collection of 90 percent of the premiums due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). The UHC is set to be implemented this year to provide health insurance benefits to all Filipinos.
Only about 10 percent of last year’s level has been collected because many members are not paying their premiums and “we will be running a deficit by the end of 2020 and we will be maintaining the deficit up to 2024,” he said. He continued that “collection from the direct contributors is not significant either. Since business activities stopped, they did not pay their premiums.”
PhilHealth is also expected to shoulder about Php 40.7-billion in medical bills of Covid-19 patients from February 2020 until January 2021. Beleaguered by this deficit, Morales appealed to congress for Php 138 billion to finance various health programs under the UHC if implementation would push through.
In return, Senator Go called on the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to immediately address the budget concerns of PhilHealth. “It will be unacceptable if we will be suddenly told that PhilHealth has run out of funds. Our health-care system is very important,” he said.
