OVERFLOWING UNUSED PHILHEALTH FUNDS REACHED P173.4 BILLION

Lawmakers find out surplus funds on PhilHealth (Photo courtesy of PhilHealth/Inquirer)

It is said that the billions peso funds that the PhilHealth did not spend last year are overflowing. Some legislators then commented why not give the money to the people of the town.

“There's money but kept”, that's what the lawmakers found out during the House committee on health's hearing on PhilHealth's surplus funds last year. It hit P173.4 billion that came from the money collected by the agency from the contributions of PhilHealth members.

The agency has more than P38.8 billion in government subsidy, and P463 billion in reserved funds. With the amount of money, the question of the congressman is why it is not spent to help the people.

Marikina Representative Stella Quimbo, who is also an economist, insisted that why not just increase the benefits of PhilHealth members, the agency has a lot of money. Apart from that, the congresswoman also criticized the amount charged by PhilHealth, she suggested to lower the bill or maybe suspend the collection so that the workers have additional expenses especially now that the goods are expensive.

“This amount does not even include income from investments. Every year, they not only collect premiums from workers. They also get very huge appropriations from Congress. There’s P80 billion for premium subsidies and on top of that, P20 billion for benefit expansion,” she said.

“This is how huge the amount PhilHealth is getting annually. Ironically, PhilHealth's benefit spending is too low. The out-of-pocket spending on the average is about 50 percent. That's among the lowest in Southeast Asia. This is proof that it is overcharging its members. What we should do is to adopt an actuarially fair premium. Perhaps we can begin with 4%,” she added.

"People are suffering, suspend premium payments and I have been telling you this for a long time and you always oppose it,” Quimbo stated.

VP Rey Balena of Corporate Affairs PhilHealth said that they respect the position of some legislators, they said they will let the congress to amend in relation to the recommendation of Congresswoman Stella Quimbo to lower the contribution to PhilHealth. They are said to be willing to cooperate for the welfare of the people.

Source: GMA Integrated News

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