• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
AGRI Party list Rep. Wilbert Lee is pushing for a 30 percent increase in all PhilHealth (Philippine Health Insurance Corporation) benefit packages, stressing that it has enough funds to cover it.
Lee, who visited on Thursday the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital in Bacolod City, issued a warning that he will defer the approval of the proposed 2025 budget of the Department of Health if PhilHealth fails to increase the coverage of its benefits package.
PhilHealth also got the ire of Lee for its plans to invest P351 billion in treasury bonds, while so many Filipinos died every minute, as they refused to go to hospitals, since they have no money to pay hospital bills.
PhilHealth should implement another “30-percent increase in all its benefit packages” and include diagnostic scans in its covered services, Lee said.
“Kapag hindi ito nangyari (If that does not happen), I will move for the deferment of the budget of the PhilHealth at the proper time,” the lawmaker said.
He said the state health insurer should use its excess funds to expand its services and lower member premiums.
PhilHealth president Emmanuel Ledesma earlier said he will check if the state health insurer could cover Lee’s request.
“We are currently looking at all of these. We are asking for more patience,” Ledesma added.
He clarified that PhilHealth has “implemented a 30-percent increase” in February.
“We are in the process of studying another round across the board. It will happen on or before Christmas Day,” he said.
“So we will have an almost 60-percent increase across the board,” he added.
Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said “they will review as requested all these packages,” noting that the current 30-percent support value of the state insurer in every hospital bill is “low.”
“The progress of PhilHealth has also been very slow. We should jump up our provision of health care to as much as 80 percent of costs,” the health secretary said.
“We will comply and make sure that appropriate action will be taken by PhilHealth,” he added.*
