PhilHealth payments freeze needed amid unresolved issues —think tank

Members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) should be given a moratorium on policy payments while leakages remain an issue in the agency, a public policy think tank said Sunday.

In an emailed statement, Infrawatch said the PhilHealth should look into providing a payment holiday for members while investigations are ongoing on fraudulent schemes in the agency.

"Unless there is policy clarity on reforms relating to Philhealth's leadership and fund life, there should be a moratorium on compulsory remittances by members to the state health insurance firm," Terry Ridon, Infrawatch PHL convener said.

"The moratorium is justified: government will be setting up the public towards another heartbreak if they cannot avail of their benefits by next year. Government should step in to plug the leaks and change the agency’s top management," he added.

Under its mandate, PhilHealth is tasked to administer the National Health Insurance Program which aims to provide health insurance coverage and ensure affordable, acceptable, available and accessible health care services for all citizens of the Philippines.

PhilHealth is now facing investigations after three officials resigned just last month over alleged corrupt practices in the agency.

One of them, anti-fraud legal officer Thorrsson Montes Keith, who on Tuesday said the "PhilHealth mafia" pocketed some P15 billion from fraudulent schemes.

Also, PhilHealth officials are under investigation over the agency's alleged overpriced purchase of an information technology system worth over P2 billion.

According to presidential spokesman Harry Roque, the investigation will be headed by Undersecretary Jesus Melchor Quitain of the Office of the Special Assistant to the President.

Just last week, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales said some P10.2 billion could have been lost to fraud in 2019, and this could double to P18 billion by next year.

PhilHealth acting senior vice president Nerissa Santiago last Tuesday also claimed that the insurer's actuarial life is now down to a year due to decreased collections and an expected increase in benefit payouts due to the coronavirus disease 2019.

"If this means a new round of subsidies, then so be it. Members should not be made to pay for fraud, but government should hold to account those who perpetrated the fraud," said Ridon.

To recall, President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 warned government officials that even a whiff of corruption would not be tolerated by his administration.

Malacañang last week said Duterte will not remove Morales from PhilHealth unless there is proof that the retired military general is involved in corruption.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has since formed a task force that would investigate allegations of anomalies and corruption at PhilHealth.

"But more important, it was the President himself that made the standard on the firing of presidential appointees: not a whiff of corruption. This is not even a whiff, this is a landfill," said Ridon.

"Why should a TF (task force) substitute the President’s resolve to fire his appointees, when he has done this with great abandon for so many others, for less, if not for nothing," he added. —LBG, GMA News