Senate approves P14.3B PhilHealth budget for senior citizen coverage, pension

Sen. Ralph Recto. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

The Senate has approved P14.3-billion funding for Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) coverage and monthly pension for senior citizens, included in the 2016 national budget.

In a statement on Saturday, Senator Ralph Recto said P6.78 billion was allocated in the 2016 national budget to place 2.8 million senior citizens under PhilHealth coverage.

Recto said the P6.78 billion for the medical insurance of senior citizens is part of the P43.84 billion that government would spend next year for insurance premiums of 18.24 million poor households.

He said the P6.78-billion allocation would pay for the health insurance of those not presently captured by any of the PhilHealth coverage schemes.

Also included in the budget was the P7.51 billion required to grant a P 6,000 annual aid to 1,182,914 million indigents aged 60 and above.

The senator said the funding complies with Republic Act 10645, which makes mandatory the automatic PhilHealth membership of the country’s senior citizens. Recto was the author of the said measure.

Under the implementing rules of the law, seniors need not present a PhilHealth card, only a valid ID proving identity and age, to avail themselves of PhiIHealth benefits.

The senator said there are approximately 6.3 million senior citizens in the Philippines.

Of this, an estimated 2.8 million are neither PhilHealth members, nor dependents of PhilHealth members, he added.

Meanwhile, on the DSWD-run Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens Program, Recto said that next year’s funding level of P7.51 billion is P1.54 billion more than this year’s P5.96 billion.

He said the P1.54-billion hike would fund the enrolment of an additional 243,332 seniors, whose numbers would increase to 1,182,914 from this year’s 939,609.

“We are promoting the idea that all indigent seniors 60 years old and above must be covered by the proposed allocation. The policy is ‘No Senior Left Behind’,” Recto said.

The senator said the Senate has a “good track record” in expanding the coverage of “social protection programs.”

Recto said the Senate successfully raised the 2015 budget of the senior pension program, originally pegged at P4.76 billion, to P5.96 billion, “by cutting the fat in the budget and rechanneling it to good programs.”

The grant of a monthly pension to “economically disadvantaged” seniors is mandated by Republic Act 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010. CDG

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