Chiz: There’s money
for mandatory PhilHealth coverage of senior citizens in 2015
By Office of Senator Chiz
Escudero
November 24, 2014
PASAY CITY – The
Senate has ensured that the new law granting automatic health
insurance to senior citizens regardless of their socio-economic status
will be funded by next year’s national budget.
According to Senator Chiz
Escudero, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, senior citizens
are among the sectors that will benefit from the mandatory PhilHealth
coverage under a new special provision in the 2015 general
appropriations bill, which he sponsored.
Also to be covered are
indigents and elected and appointed barangay officials, tanods and
barangay health workers (BHW).
“Volunteer tanods put their
lives on the line but receive a token pay. So are BHWs who only get a
measly honorarium. The least we can do is to give them health
insurance so when they are hurt in the line of duty, the treatment
will be shouldered by PhilHealth,” Escudero said.
The senator explained that
funding for the “full premium subsidy” of the covered sectors will
come from a P37.06-billion allocation of the National Health Insurance
Program (NHIP) under the government’s proposed spending package for
next year.
Escudero has attached a
special provision to this fund “so that those who need PhilHealth
insurance but can’t afford it will be covered.”
“The continuing role of the
government is to remove barriers and provide wider access to
healthcare assistance which is a universal basic service,” Escudero
pointed out.
In addition to indigent
seniors and barangay officials, the Escudero amendment mandates the
automatic PhilHeath coverage of indigent families identified by the
National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).
In order to ensure that this
sector will continue to get health insurance coverage next year, the
special provision also orders the retention in the 2015 list of the
“poor and low income families who are currently enrolled in the NHIP.”
The P37.06 billion earmarked
for next year’s NHIP will be used to pay for the PhilHealth membership
premiums of 10.2 million “sponsored families.”
Escudero said he specified
“all seniors” in the special provision so that the newly-signed
Republic Act No. 10645 will be fully implemented. “We don’t want it to
end up as an unfunded mandate.”
Escudero was referring to
the Act Providing for the Mandatory PhilHealth Coverage for All Senior
Citizens, Amending for the Purpose RA 7431, as Amended by RA 9994,
otherwise known as the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010, which
President Aquino signed early this month.
For 2015, the Department of
Health (DoH) has a proposed budget of P89.9 billion, up from P87.1
billion this year.
But the total health sector
budget, including budgetary support for four Quezon City-based
specialty hospitals, the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, and other
non-DoH agencies, is P94.6 billion, according to a Department of
Budget and Management briefer.