Agri Party-list Rep. Wilbert Lee called on the Benefits Committee (BenCom) of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to immediately meet in regards to the implementation of an increase in essential benefit packages.
Lee made this appeal after the Department of Health (DOH), which heads BenCom, announced an increase in the hemodialysis package rate from PHP4,000 to PHP6,350 per session.
“We thank the DOH and PhilHealth for heeding our call to increase the coverage in medical treatments like hemodialysis. But our question is: why are increases done on a piecemeal basis?” Lee said in a news release.
“If the DOH, through BenCom, can promptly convene and increase certain PhilHealth benefit packages, why can’t it be done with the coverage of other case rates with their enormous available funds?” he said.
Lee, along with other legislators from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, has expressed frustration over the long-overdue increase in PhilHealth's essential benefit packages.
According to Lee, based on PhilHealth’s financial report as of March 2024, the state health insurer has around PHP 612 billion, with PHP 467 billion as reserve funds and PHP 374 billion in investible funds.
“With the hundreds of billions of PhilHealth funds, PhilHealth should immediately implement increased coverages of other major diseases and costly hospital operations," he said.
Lee said that these should include cancer treatment, coronary artery disease, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scan, CT scan, maternity care, dental care, eye care, emergency care, and a comprehensive outpatient benefit package, among others.
Earlier, Lee filed House Resolution 2015, urging DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa Jr. to convene BenCom.
Lee proposed that BenCom discussions be livestreamed to allow the public to stay informed about the deliberation of their entitlements and benefits under PhilHealth.
“The present discussions are where to invest or use the excess funds of PhilHealth. This should not be debated: Funds for healthcare should be used for healthcare,” he said.
“Medicines and treatment should be shouldered by the government to ease our countrymen’s fear that they would be mired further in debt and poverty if they got sick because they don’t have the means to buy medicines or pay the hospital bill. This is everybody’s fight, let’s do it now.”
