President Rodrigo Roa Duterte on Monday told the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to suspend the increase of its members’ contribution scheduled this year.
“We come now to the status sa PhilHealth. There is a move to increase the contribution ng mga members. At this time of our life, may I just suggest to the PhilHealth chairman, si Dante Gierran at saka ‘yung si — lahat na — isang tao lang kailangan kong sabihan diyan. Huwag muna ngayon (and everyone I need to speak to. Not now. No — no increase in contributions,” Duterte said in his public address late Monday night.
Duterte said he would “look for money” to fund Republic Act 11223 or the Universal Health Care (UHC) law to ensure that the services of the state-run PhilHealth will not be hampered.
“I will look for the money to fill it up. Maghanap tayo ng pera (Let’s look for money). Anyway, that is the job of the government to make it easy for everybody at this time, I said, of our lives,” Duterte said.
PhilHealth announced last week its plan to push through with the scheduled contribution rate adjustment this year to ensure that there will be enough funding for its beneficiaries.
According to PhilHealth, the premium will increase to 3.50 percent of monthly basic salary from the current 3 percent. It means that those who are earning below PHP10,000 will have a fixed contribution of P350 a month starting January 2021 while those who are earning P70,000 and higher per month will pay a fixed rate of P2,450 monthly.
The UHC law provides that the premium rate shall increase to increments of 0.5 percent every year starting 2021 until it reaches 5 percent in 2025. – NewsLine Philippines
