PhilHealth, being the country’s national health insurance provider, has evolved through the years since its inception in 1995. By achieving 76% coverage in 2008, it has provided the Filipino people with considerably better access to health care through its innovative benefit packages and subsidies. Be that as it may, it still has not reached the law-mandated state of universal health insurance coverage targeted at 2010.
In the RP, the poor subsidizes the rich...
Health insurance is anchored on the concept of social solidarity. Ideally, those who can afford to pay should contribute more to help those who can’t. This is the case in most European countries where their citizens pay a fixed amount of their income as their contribution to their national health insurance. However, the Philippines has adopted a different contribution system:
PhilHealth Premium Contribution Schedule
Many individually paying members (i.e. informal economy workers who do not have employers to cover half of their monthly base) are unable to sustain their contributions, putting their access to PhilHealth benefits at risk. Conversely, a salaried company executive who earns, say, P70,000.00 a month only contributes P375.00 (0.53%) from their monthly income. The latter applies to Filipinos earning P100,000.00, P1M, and so on.. because they all fit salary bracket 27.
Where do the pooled funds go then?
The Top Ten Hospitals in terms of PhilHealth Claims (2006)
- The Medical City
- St. Luke’s Medical Center
- Chong Hua Hospital
- Chinese General Hospital
- Dr. Pablo O. Torre, Sr. Memorial Hospital
- Makati Medical Center
- Davao Medical Center
- Davao Doctors’ Hospital
- Cebu Doctors’ Hospital
- Perpetual Succour Hospital
With Davao Medical Center being the only government hospital on the list, it is evident where PhilHealth’s funds are concentrated. Instead of the rich paying for the poor, the opposite happens. PhilHealth’s pooled funds are used to cover the hospital reimbursements of those who avail of services from the most expensive tertiary institutions in the country.
Whenever I think of health insurance, that Filipino image of Bayanihan always enters my mind. It just makes complete sense to do your part to help take care of people who need health care the most. Otherwise, we will only be breeding a country of unhealthy people where the poor end up with substandard care and higher medical expenses.
sources: http://www.flickr.com/photos/narrowvalley/326711229/; http://myjobstreet.jobstreet.com/premium/basicSalaryReport.asp?param=executive|000|ph||ph; http://www.philhealth.gov.ph/members/employed/contri_tbl.htm; http://hain-news.blogspot.com/2009/05/philhealth-update.html; Homenet Philippines (Policy Brief on health Insurance); PhilHealth Annual Report (2008).
