No Philhealth coverage for 1M senior citizens

At least more than one million Filipino senior citizens have yet to enlist with the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), which has been mandated by law to provide healthcare coverage to all Filipinos aged 60 and above, according to an official of the state-run insurance firm.

Latest records from Philippine Statistics Authority show there are 7.6 million Filipino senior citizens in the country. But of this total, only 2.4 million have existing PhilHealth coverage either as lifetime or employed members.

As of April 2015, at least 4.2 million senior citizens have been enrolled so far for healthcare coverage through the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs (Osca) in their respective local government units (LGUs).

“So there are a least one million that have not been reported by the Osca,” Rey Baleña, PhilHealth senior manager for formal economy sector, told reporters in an interview.

But Baleña said the insurance firm would not encourage senior citizens to come to their offices to personally enroll since they have already deputized Osca chapters nationwide to carry out bulk enrollments.

“We really don’t want them to come to our offices anymore in consideration of their health conditions,” he said, adding that the PhilHealth will instead strengthen its coordination with the Osca chapters in all the LGUs to account for the one million Filipino elderly up for enrollment.

In November last year, President Aquino approved a measure providing for the mandatory PhilHealth coverage for all senior citizens.

Under the new law, senior citizens not yet covered by the insurance program will be enrolled using money from the PhilHealth’s National Health Insurance Fund, which was augmented last year by P37 billion from the government’s earnings from the so-called “sin taxes.”

Baleña also noted that senior citizens not yet in the insurance firm’s list could still readily avail of PhilHealth benefits by merely presenting their senior citizen cards or any document that would prove they are 60 years old or above.