SEN. Bong Go on Thursday welcomed the decline in Filipinos’ out-of-pocket health spending but said the current 41 percent level remains unacceptably high.
Go urged the government to expand PhilHealth benefits and strengthen public health care to protect families from the financial burden of illness.
He said the drop from 55 percent in 2020 was “a good development, but we should not be satisfied yet. Forty-one percent is still too high."
Go said the goal should be to ensure that Filipinos do not have to choose between seeking medical treatment and paying for food and other basic household needs.
Department of Health (DOH) Acting Secretary Edwin Mercado has reported that out-of-pocket spending had fallen to 41 percent from 55 percent in 2020, while PhilHealth’s share of total health care spending rose to 19 percent from 10 percent.
Mercado said reducing out-of-pocket spending remains a key objective of social health insurance, noting that studies associate levels of around 30 to 35 percent with a lower risk of catastrophic health expenditures.
Go said the figures show that further reforms are needed because a substantial portion of medical expenses is still being shouldered directly by patients and their families.
“PhilHealth is a public fund. We should use it for the health of the people. If there is funding, let's expand the benefit and ensure that less has to be paid out of the patient's own pocket,” he said.
Go urged PhilHealth to maximize available resources by expanding benefit packages, improving coverage for costly diseases and reducing patients’ financial burden.
He stressed the importance of primary care, preventive medicine and early disease detection to keep illnesses from progressing into more serious and expensive conditions.
Mercado identified primary care as crucial to freeing up PhilHealth resources for high-cost illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, major surgical conditions and kidney ailments.
Expanded primary care programs provide members with access to consultations, medicines, laboratory tests and screening services intended to detect diseases early.
Go also backed the continued implementation and expansion of Zero Balance Billing, particularly for poor and financially incapacitated patients in government hospitals.
Mercado said the program would continue in DOH hospitals and expand to local government hospitals, while the government is studying similar arrangements for additional services in private facilities.
