A separate insurance fund under the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) may address the financial gap and help ensure senior citizens’ healthcare, especially for medicine costs, other basic necessities and little pleasures in their old age.
House Ways and Means chair and Albay Second District Representative Joey Salceda said he is exploring laws or amendments to expand the benefits of senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWD).
Salceda said the problem of access to better elderly and PWD healthcare is structural, brought about by two factors -- increasing needs for specialized services and reduced personal income due to retirement.
“We need to find ways to address this elderly welfare financial gap, but it should be tackled alongside other issues in senior citizens’ welfare,” Salceda said in a statement.
Together with Senior Citizens Party-list Representative Rodolfo Ordanes and Agusan del Sur 1st District Rep. Alfel Bascug, representing PWDs, Salceda said they have been working on issues concerning all aspects of senior citizen needs.
“The unfilled gap is an acute or catastrophic health care issue. Without insurance, such medical expenses can be ruinous to ordinary families with senior citizens. The very limited case rates under PhilHealth’s existing packages simply won’t do. A medical care cost becomes financially catastrophic when it endangers the family's ability to maintain its customary standard of living,” Salceda said.
