Push Admin

PhilHealth chief grilled over P89.9B excess funds

Article (news)

Victoria Tulad

ABS-CBN News

MANILA — Why did the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) not use its P89.9 billion excess funds?This was the question of Senator JV Ejercito as he grilled PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. during their budget deliberation on Tuesday.Ejercito said he and fellow senators were shocked and disappointed after finding out that PhilHealth had excess funds when many Filipinos struggled with their medical expenses.Ejercito is the principal author and sponsor of the Universal Healthcare Act (UHC) which ensures that Filipinos have access to affordable, high-quality health care.It can be recalled that PhilHealth’s P89.9 billion was ordered reverted to the National Treasury since it was unutilized.“Kapag may savings ka ibig sabihin you’re a failure,” Ejercito said. “Ang daming naghihirap, ang daming nahihirapang bumili ng gamot nakapila , magbayad ng ospital. Ang laki laki ng savings mo di mo ginamit. Ganun po kami sa gobyerno. When you have a fund for social services, inuubos po ‘yan dapat. Hindi natin dapat ipagmalaki na meron tayong savings. We are not a private corporation.”Ledesma agreed with Ejercito’s points but said he was only appointed in November 2022.“I’m the first one among all of us in this room who is not proud that PhilHealth has a, had a P600 billion cash reserve. Pero at the same time, parang mali rin ata to pin the blame fully on me. Why? Kasi again uulitin ko po, itong pera na ‘to, this was piling up through the years, hindi naman, this is all accumulated through a long period of time… I think it’s wrong to point the finger at me,” Ledesma remarked.Ejercito pointed out, however, that Ledesma has had enough time.“I guess two years, Mr. President, is long enough,” Ejercito said. “Hindi naman puwedeng sabihin na magiging ano pa, ano to, learning curve, two years. There is no room, I think Mr. President, to wait because a lot of our people are struggling to pay their medical bills.”  According to Ledesma, there are three reasons why the fund grew and remained unused.“First reason kaya nagkumpol-kumpol po ‘yung  pondo, is because 12 years po hindi na-enhance ang case packages. Number two po, nagkaroon po tayo ng pandemic for two and a half years and because of that po, I think all of us in this room and most of us dahil napaka-serious ‘yung pandemic natakot po lumabas sa bahay at pumunta sa hospital, at pumunta sa mga doktor dahil baka magkaroon ng covid,” he said.“The third reason po is, kasi by law, and Mr. President alam na alam ito ni Senator JV, ‘yung premium contributions were already set so even if we had a lot of funds in place po, tuloy-tuloy pa rin ang pagkokolekta ng premium contributions,” Ledesma added.He also enumerated some of the adjustments under his leadership such as the 30 percent increase in coverage rates in February 2024 and increase in payment to hospitals.The breast cancer coverage, for example, which used to be P100,000 increased to P1.4 million in April, according to Ledesma.In December 2024, PhilHealth will implement another increase of 30 percent to 50 percent in coverage rates.“I’d like to think medyo nagiging aggressive po kami and we are not gonna stop there,” Ledesma said. “Parang huwag namang sabihin na wala po kaming ginagawa.”Ejercito said it is nice to hear about the increases but pointed out that these are not felt by the masses.“Kung sinasabi niyong madaming nang accomplishment ang PhilHealth, ang tanong ko lang simple, bakit hindi nararamdaman ng tao at mga pasyente ito?” Ejercito asked.“Oo nagkaroon ng improvement sa out of pocket expense pero kakapiranggot,” he added. “This will hardly make a dent doon sa kanila pong babayarin.”Other senators, meanwhile, told Ledesma off for his demeanor.“May I remind our resource person especially since we have suspended the rules, to temper the responses with an iota of humility and perhaps answer correctly the questions being propounded by a member of this chamber so that we can have a semblance of a sincere discussions here, engagement, with a member of this chamber,” Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino said.Senator Sherwin Garchalian who was the presiding officer chimed in.“May I remind the President of PhilHealth, the resource person to please answer the question with respect and also to temper his voice. Because Senator JV has been very fair in his questioning and may I remind the resource person to answer the questions directly without any insinuation of disrespect,” Gatchalian said.Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada gave a warning.“It has come to my attention that there is a head of agency who answers disrespectfully in answering questions of Senators and I would like to warn all those heads of the agencies concerned to be respectful in answering questions coming from the Senators. We can defer your budget, we&#x27;ve done that before and we can do that again. And this warning goes to all heads of agencies concerned,” Estrada said.In a message, Ejercito said, “I felt offended and some senators as well with the way Manny Ledesma answered questions. May pagka presko! Bordering on bastos.”Ledesma apologized during the deliberation.

Why did the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) not use its P89.9 billion excess funds?

Why did the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) not use its P89.9 billion excess funds?