31 Negros mayors pick PhilHealth

BACOLOD CITY—All 31 mayors in Negros Occidental will no longer withdraw from PhilHealth after the agency’s president offered an easier payment scheme for the health insurance premiums of poor beneficiaries during a meeting last week.

PhilHealth president Eduardo Banzon said the local chief executives could register their beneficiaries for a two-year coverage by paying P600 per person outright and the remaining P1,800 at the end of 2013.

Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. said the mayors and congressmen agreed to stay with PhilHealth because they were amenable to the payment scheme.  PhilHealth, he added, also promised to provide more benefits to members.

The mayors had earlier planned to withdraw payment of premiums for 148,081 indigent enrollees in PhilHealth upon learning that the agency was planning to increase the amount from P600 to P1,200 this year. Congress removed the national government’s counterpart of P600, prompting the increase, Banzon said.

Local officials said they could no afford the new rates with the expected drop in the internal revenue allotment (IRA) shares of cities and towns.

Instead of enrolling the indigents to PhilHealth, the mayors had planned to pay the amount directly to another health insurance provider, the Negros Occidental Comprehensive Health Care Program. Carla P. Gomez, Inquirer Visayas