Solons alarmed over looming PhilHealth funding troubles

House of Representatives lawmakers on Tuesday expressed concern over the admission of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) that its funds are depleting and its actuarial life is now reduced to one year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, House Committee on Health chair Angelina "Helen" Tan said the PhilHealth's admission is "enormously alarming," especially that "we are just about to roll out the implementation of the Universal Health Care Act, a commitment that we have made to all Filipinos.”

At a Senate hearing on the alleged irregularities in the corporation, PhilHealth's acting Senior Vice President Nerissa Santiago said the reduction of the state health insurer's actuarial life was due to "decreased collections" and an "expected increase in benefit payouts" caused by the pandemic.

She said the state insurer will run out of reserve funds and enter into a deficit by 2021, and that it can only survive through government subsidies.

She added that PhilHealth expects a net operating loss of about P90 billion this year. If the pandemic persists into 2021, she said their operating loss could reach P147 billion.

Tan, however, questioned the accuracy of the data presented by Santiago given that there has been a significant decrease in benefit package payments because more patients are avoiding hospitals over fears of contracting COVID-19.

“While it is easy to understand that the pandemic has brought a ‘double impact’ of decreasing collections and increasing payouts for the hospitalization of COVID-19 patients, it is hard to think that PhilHealth will be dead horse by next year considering that it is saving a lot of money because of the decreased utilization of other benefit packages," she said.

For his part, House Minority Leader Benny Abante Jr. said he was "shocked" by the revelation of PhilHealth, saying this should have been relayed to Congress earlier so that some funds intended for COVID-19 response could have been allocated to augment the health insurer's resources.

"This development highlights the importance of the inquiries the Senate and the House are conducting, as well as the urgency involved in finding short and long-term solutions to the different problems faced by PhilHealth," he said.

Meanwhile, House Committee on Ways and Means chair Joey Salceda said that if PhilHealth is indeed losing funds, then this means not enough was done to strengthen the agency's financial position during the years that its premium collections were exceeding claims.

"While we understand the extraordinary burden that COVID-19 has placed on the insurance system, and we in Congress have expressed willingness to infuse capitalization to cover the COVID-attributable upsurge in claims, we have to hold the Philhealth to account for its apparent mismanagement of public finances," he said.

"Pandemics like COVID-19 are a fact of human history. Something like this will happen again. That is why PhilHealth has to be effectively managed in good times, so that the system is prepared for bad times like these," he added.

Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate, on the other hand, said the PhilHealth's admission only strengthens the position of the Makabayan Bloc that funds from the national budget should directly be allocated to hospitals and not to the agency itself.

"As it is PhilHealth is seems to be so entrenched in corruption and syndicates that it is hard for us to trust it with people's money. They can't even answer why their IT resources were overpriced as well as overpriced COVID testing and a slew of other anomalies," he said.

"PhilHealth should answer all these allegations and heads must roll due to these anomalies," he added.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will take its turn to quiz PhilHealth on the reported new allegations of corruption involving its officials and personnel in a hearing to be conducted by the House Committee on Public Accounts. — DVM, GMA News