With P110B in retained earnings, PhilHealth won't go bust — Recto
Sen. Ralph Recto on Thursday criticized the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) for feeding the public the "disinformation" that it would go bankrupt should its retained earnings be used to address the country's healthcare infrastructure shortage. "With retained earnings of P110 billion, there's no way that PhilHealth will fall to the ground as professed by the treasury department of the agency," said Recto, chair of the Senate Ways and Means committee. "Malaking kalokohan 'yan, na malulugi sila (That’s a big lie, that they will lose money)," he added. Recto filed Senate Bill 2653, which seeks to earmark half of PhilHealth's retained earnings or reserve funds for the Department of Health's Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP). According to the senator, PhilHealth will further commit a great disservice if it increases the premiums paid by members, "while clutching eagle-like to its retained earnings." "They will increase the members' contributions when they have more than enough funds to expand coverage and subsidize low-income poor workers," Recto explained. PhilHealth, however, may keep its closely guarded retained earnings and not allocate it to address the deficit in healthcare infrastructure, as long as the funds would be used to increase the benefits of members. "You can't be instantly charitable (to poor members) when you don't want to open your retained earnings for a noble purpose — like reducing the shortage in healthcare infrastructure like barangay clinics and hospitals, which would benefit a great deal of people," he said. PhilHealth will fall Evangeline Racelis, PhilHealth senior Treasury manager, had said in a previous Senate hearing that the agency would fall if the proposed measure of Recto's SB 2653 were enacted into law. The DOH will fund HFEP with P7.143 billion out of this year’s budget, saying it needs about double or triple the amount to wipe out the backlog in healthcare infrastructure. HFEP aims to enhance the capacity of primary healthcare facilities such as barangay health stations, rural health centers, and government hospitals, which is at the frontlines of the public healthcare system. No less than the top officials of PhilHealth had claimed that the state agency has retained earnings of about P110 billion during previous budget hearings in the Senate, Recto said. "It is time to tap these funds and put them to better use. The DOH and PhilHealth should complement each other in improving the delivery of healthcare services to the people," he said. As of June 2010, PhilHealth has 21.65 million registered members, the bulk — 7.41 million — of which comes from the private sector. Their contributions range from P50 for those receiving P4,999.99 and below, and as much as P375 for those receiving P30,000 and more. The DOH has proposed to increase PhilHealth members’ contributions to 3.5 percent, from the 2.5 percent, of salaries. — VS, GMA News