PhilHealth: 2020 subsidy ‘not enough’ to fund premium of all indirect contributors

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) bared Tuesday that its 2020 subsidy was “not enough” to fund the premium of all indirect contributors.

During the online meeting of the joint congressional oversight committee on the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law, PhilHealth President and CEO Ricardo Morales said their proposed subsidy for 2020 was a little over P153 billion.

However, PhilHealth only “received” P71.3 billion, according to Morales.

“Our [2020] proposal was for a subsidy of ₱153 billion, what Philhealth received for this year was ₱71.3 billion,” Morales said.

“In effect, this was not enough to fund the premium of all indirect contributors thus affecting PhilHealth’s capacity to cover all benefits,” he added.

Meanwhile, Morales noted that they have only collected a total premium income of P46.5 billion as of April 30, 2020.

This, he said, is below the benefit expense of P52.5 billion.

“We have a benefit expense of ₱52.5 billion and we have collected a total premium income of ₱46.5 billion. In other words, we are spending 13 centavos more per peso than we collect as premium collection,” Morales said.

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For 2021, Morales said PhilHealth is eyeing a subsidy of P138 billion based on “more accurate projections provided by different relevant agencies.”

In his presentation, it shows that P55 billion of the proposed subsidy is for the National Household Targeting System (NHTS), P41 billion for senior citizens, and P31 billion for the expansion of UHC.

KGA