HOUSEHOLDS continued to account for the bulk of the country’s health expenses, according to the latest Total Health Expenditure (THE) data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The PSA said THE amounted to P1.2 trillion, a decline of 1.4 percent from the P1.22-trillion expenditure in 2021. The share of THE to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at current prices was 5.5 percent in 2022.
Of this amount, PSA said 44.7 percent was accounted for by Filipino households. This share was higher than that of the government, whose share was 44.2 percent of the total.
“Out of the total health spending, Current Health Expenditure [CHE] contributed 93.4 percent, while the Health Capital Formation Expenditure [HK] shared 6.6 percent in 2022. CHE declined by 1.5 percent in 2022, while HK posted a 0.2 percent growth in the same year,” PSA said.
Based on PSA data, the share of households in CHE was also higher than the share of the general government in 2019. In that year, households accounted for 48.8 percent of CHE while the general government accounted for 40.8 percent of CHE.
In 2022, the share of households to the CHE was again higher than the general government—which included the share of the central government, accounting for 20.9 percent of the total, and the Department of Health (DOH), a share of 15.5 percent.
General government also included the share of local governments at 9.7 percent and social security agencies at 13.6 percent, which was mainly extended by PhilHealth.
The PSA’s derived indicators also showed the out of pocket payment (OOP) bay households reached P501.785 billion in 2022, a 5-percent growth from the P478.04 billion posted in 2021.
On a per capita basis, PSA data showed health spending in 2022 amounted to P10,059.49, which was lower by 2.7 percent compared with the amount recorded in 2021 at P10,341.73.
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