MALACAÑANG on Wednesday said President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. is now looking into the proposal of the Department of Health (DOH) to suspend the implementation of the 5-percent premium hike of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth).
“The President is studying the request,” Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cheloy V. Garafil said in a brief statement.
She made the remark after DOH Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa announced they submitted an appeal to the Palace to defer raising the PhilHealth premium to 5 percent this year in line with the schedule of increases under Republic Act (RA) No. 11223 or the Universal Healthcare Law.
Saying PhilHealth has “enough money to actually continue to give benefits,” Herbosa on Wednesday revealed that he has appealed to the President that the implementation of the premium rate increase in 2024 be shelved.
“It will not be hurt by delaying the increase in premium. I need to see good actuarials on this one. You need to have a science-based policy. Hindi ‘yung [Not simply a] whim na itataas mo lang [to raise it]. There are other things that are supporting health care,” Herbosa said in a media forum.
He said his recommendation to Marcos is to start from where they stopped and not the current 5 percent.
“If we stopped at 2 percent or 3 percent increase, we start at where it was suspended. That for me is the logical way to lift suspension. We don’t jump to a very high rate because people will suffer,” Herbosa said, partly in Filipino, in a media forum.
He lamented that the prices of the commodities are also rising so it is better to suspend the implementation at the moment.
“I know PhilHealth is healthy with a very good reserve and a very good investment,” Herbosa said.
Earlier, PhilHealth announced that the premium contribution of its members will increase this year from 4 percent to 5 percent, in line with the Universal Health Care (UHC) law.
“We need the funds so we can sustain the good reforms we started in giving benefits under PhilHealth,” said PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel Ledesma, Jr.
The additional premium will be used by PhilHealth, an attached agency of DOH, to expand its primary care benefit and essential services.
RA 11223 initially set the PhilHealth premiums rate to 2.75 percent in 2019, which gradually grew to 4 percent in 2022.
The premium rate was supposed to reach 4.5 percent last year, but Executive Secretary Lucas P. Bersamin issued a memorandum deferring its enforcement due to “socioeconomic challenges” faced by the public that time.
Herbosa said the memorandum lapsed last month, which will compel PhilHealth to implement the scheduled 5-percent premium rate this year.
He said he wants to suspend the premium hike, which will mean additional cost to PhilHealth members, until they can conduct an actuarial study on the funds of the state-owned insurer.
DOH is confident PhilHealth has sufficient funds this year to afford the services of its members even without the 5-percent premium rate.
PhilHealth estimated the higher premium would have allowed it to earn an additional P17 billion this year.