I’m not done with the Department of Health’s (DoH) raid on the PhilHealth fund, and being a critical life-threatening issue, The Bridge won’t stop until the rich man stops its insensitivity and denial of the members’ right to their very own funds, clearly not giving Caesar what’s due Caesar.

Despite the deluge of criticism and protests raging against Finance Secretary Ralph Recto’s siphoning off the P90-billion healthcare fund, the rich man remains stubborn in his anti-people’s health stand.

Every PhilHealth member is one in saying that they deserve more than the usual financial benefits such as for hospitalization, which they usually enjoy. Exactly, the members complain of a mere one-third of their hospital bill being covered by PhilHealth when there is more than enough in excess funds that should be made available to them.

Healthcare industry leaders — hospital owners, medical professionals and related sectors — have come out in unison to ask Secretary Recto to halt future transfers of PhilHealth “excess funds.” As an insurance entity, PhilHealth needs to maintain an adequate reserve to finance improved health services for its members since the funds are theirs.

It is wrong for Recto to claim the excess funds belong to the government, it being a subsidy. Assuming, in layman’s terms, that the so-called excess funds came from the government, it is for all intents and purposes PhilHealth’s or its members’ funds and no other executive department like the DoF should dip its dirty fingers in it.

The healthcare associations had sent a letter to Recto signed by 71 representatives who stressed that PhilHealth funds must not be tapped by the government to cover its budget shortfalls.

“We strongly believe the solution to PhilHealth’s inability to use its funds is not to strip Filipinos of healthcare funding but to implement immediate and substantial PhilHealth reforms such as increasing the scope and coverage of benefit packages,” they said.

They called it “unjust to take these funds for other purposes, because the financial needs for healthcare is a huge burden. Currently, around 44 percent of a usual hospital bill is shouldered out-of-pocket by the patient.“ This is proof of the financial inadequacies of PhilHealth’s insurance system.

As I’ve previously written here in the DAILY TRIBUNE, patients and their families cry out for help and assistance, line up for hours and days at the DSWD, DoH, OVP, the offices of elected officials, especially members of the House and the Senate, for guarantee letters to settle their hospital bills.

It’s infuriating that while Recto admitted that PhilHealth has on hand about P500 billion in a reserve fund, he has remained insensitive and stubborn in his stand to raid the fund.

PhilHealth officials are equally inefficient, incompetent, insensitive and unresponsive to the severe need for expanding the benefits of its members. Not to be repetitive, but PhilHealth must use the funds at its disposal to fill the inadequacy of the benefits that it currently provides.

Former DoF Undersecretary Cielo Magno agrees with us that Recto should “not blur” the lines on expenditures for public health. The Universal Health Care Act requires that funds allocated to PhilHealth should be used only to either expand its services or lower its premiums. Absolutely, she pointed out, “there’s nothing there that says the government, the executive branch, can take away the money of PhilHealth to finance other government projects.”

We ask that DoF Circular 003-2024 instructing GOCCs to remit their excess funds to the National Treasury be revised to exclude PhilHealth.

Unless the DoF and PhilHealth officials reverse the situation, it’s indeed a disservice and callousness to the health needs of Filipinos.