CITY OF MEYCAUAYAN—Senator Bong Go, chair of the senate health committee will question PhilHealth officials in a hearing in senate today over its billions of unused funds yet it only implements a very small 3.75% case rate to hospitalized patients.
Speaking after he distributes food packs to flood victims in this city on Monday, Go told the media in an interview that he would ask PhilHealth officials of the current status of its program which should have been largely benefiting the poor Filipino people.
Go said the first thing he will ask them today is why in an P800,000 hospitalization bill of a patient, PhilHealth will only pay P30,000 which is just 3.75 % of the total bill. “San nila kukunin at san sila pupunta para sa P770,000. Bakit hindi ninyo gamitin iyong reserve fund ninyo para sa mahihirap. Contribution iyan ng mga Filipino, dapat mapakinabangan nila iyan, (Where should they go to get the needed P770,000. Why don’t you use your reserve funds for the poor people. The money is the controbution of the Filipino people and they should benefit from that), Go said.
As chair of the senate health committee, Go has an oversight function on the Universal Health care law.
According to him, PhilHealth claims to have a reserve fund of more than P500-billion and yet they only spend so little for the health needs of the people. “They are saying they have more than P500-Billion reserve funds that’s why the Department of Budget and Management sweeps off P89 billion of their funds. The question is what are their plans now. Have they expand their benefit packages, have they increased their very low case rate??,” he told reporters.
The senator said that he has already recommended to the agency to decrease to a lower rate the premium contribution of PhilHealth members.
Also, the senator said, the health insurance program of the agency is still far fetch in serving the more than 100 million Filipinos.
