CFO wants Fil-Am retirees to keep their Medicare benefits outside US

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) has supported calls to allow Filipino-American retirees to still enjoy their Medicare benefits even outside the United States. 

Medicare is a health insurance program of the US federal government.

The CFO along with representatives from various agencies such as the Department of Health, the Filipino Retirement Authority, the Department of Tourism, and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation met with the USMedicarePH, a group of Filipino-Americans lobbying for the portability of the US-based health insurance for people aged 65 and above. 

“Let me just underscore why the CFO is doing this: it is because we want the Filipinos overseas to consider returning home to the Philippines. At the CFO, we want to reverse the narrative from brain drain to brain gain,” said CFO Secretary Dante Ang II in a press briefing on Thursday. 

“I think this is one initiative that we can support and I think is doable, and it would be not only an economic stimulus for the Philippines, but I think also an answer to the solutions of the United States probably in looking for ways to cut their cost,” Ang added. 

Eric Lachica, incorporator of USMedicare PH, said that Guam Congressman James Moylan last year introduced H.R. 7442 or the Philippine Medicare Portability Study Act, which looks into the feasibility and financial impact of expanding the coverage of the Medicare program to services in the Philippines. 

“Bottom line here, we will be saving the American taxpayers at least 50% if they allow us Filipino-American seniors and Americans to retire here in the Philippines,” he said. 

Lachica also said that he is “optimistic” that the bill will get support from US lawmakers: “I'm very optimistic because first time ever last year we got a bill introduced for Republicans under Congressman Moilan of  Guam and for Democrats, on Congressman Bobby Scott. So we only had nine months to pass it. So with a two-year congressional cycle in the US, we're hopeful.” 

Data from the CFO showed that the US is the top destination for Filipino emigrants from 1981-2022, with over a million individuals accounted for. 

Moreover, there are more than four million Filipinos who have been permanently residing in the Americas as of 2021, according to the data by the Department of Foreign Affairs. 

For his part, Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said that making Medicare accessible to Filipino-American retirees in the Philippines will also encourage  senior nurses and doctors to come home and share their experience from working in the US healthcare system. 

“So they come home, I call it return migration because these nurses are now highly trained in high-quality health care that can train my younger nurses until they can still teach and when they retire they can still teach. So even the doctors that practice in the US, some of them that have retired here actually are doing pro bono work in their communities,” he said. 

“Imagine senior nurses coming here and senior doctors from the US with the specialization coming here, there will be a big return migration and power...We lost them as brain drain but now they're coming home if we're able to push the Medicare portability,” Herbosa added. — BM, GMA Integrated News