PHILHEALTH: PH HEALTH CARE SYSTEM DOING QUITE WELL
PHILHEALTH welcomes any and all feedback that can help ensure that each and every Filipino will feel universal health care. As our board chairman, Health Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa, has said, Dapat, bawat Pilipino, ramdam ang kalusugan.” However, we must all appreciate data properly and be careful in jumping to conclusions, such as our health care system being in the “ICU” (article by Mr. Red Mendoza, The Manila Times, July 9, 2023).
The NDHS 2022 data cited in the report tells us that seven out of 10 Filipinos are now aware of PhilHealth, compared to just about six out of 10 in 2017. Aware of the midyear population projections of the Philippine Statistics Authority, we can see that PhilHealth and its partners worked together from 2017 to 2022, so that around 6.6 million more Filipinos are now aware of PhilHealth.
In fact, the recent NDHS report objectively states that “the national government has intensified its interventions to increase financial risk protection for Filipinos through providing free and quality health services in the public sector, enhancing the packages covered by [PhilHealth], and increasing the coverage of [PhilHealth].” It also states that PhilHealth is “by far the most common form of health insurance.”
While the average cost of inpatient treatment indeed increased by 117 percent from 2017 to 2022, we should not just look at one data point from one source. The Philippine National Health Accounts (PNHA) show that from 2017 to 2021, health spending for preventive care increased by 166 percent, compared to only a 54 percent increase in curative care. We have been spending more on that ounce of prevention, hoping to avoid the more expensive pound of cure.
PhilHealth thanks the late President Benigno S. Aquino 3rd for the 2013 increase in tobacco and alcohol excise taxes, from which we get subsidies for those who cannot pay. We thank former president Rodrigo R. Duterte for signing into law the Universal Health Care Act of 2019, which gives us a stronger mandate to pursue game-changing reforms like close-ended prepayments (e.g., PhilHealth Konsulta capitation and global budgets). We also thank President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. for actively guiding us, through Secretary Herbosa and also our president and CEO Emmanuel R. Ledesma,
Jr., both of whom are keen on deploying additional substantial benefits (e.g., more hemodialysis sessions, better case rates, a mental health outpatient package, etc.) even under the pressure of a suspended increase in premium contributions.
PhilHealth continues to work in the interest of all Filipinos and invites all concerned to let us know how we can do better.
Albert Francis E. Domingo, MD, MSc Corporate Spokesperson PhilHealth