Department of Health (DoH) Secretary Teodoro Herbosa has stressed that the unused and idle funds of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) should be returned to the national government since the agency failed to utilize these state subsidies.

In a television interview, the DoH chief explained that the national government has the right to direct PhilHealth to return P89.9 billion in unused funds.

“These are not funds of PhilHealth. These are funds of the national government that PhilHealth asked for,” said Herbosa.

“The problem is for the past three years, these funds are in excess of what they register,” he added.

Herbosa – who also chairs the PhilHealth board -- pointed out that the funds to be remitted by PhilHealth are “not savings.”

“It's not from the members’ contributions. This is not from their reserve fund; this is not from their investments. This is from government money that they asked for, and government gave it and they (PhilHealth) were unable to absorb it,”  Herbosa said.

The Health secretary also cited that even after returning the excess PhilHealth funds, the DoH could always use additional support, but that the state insurer at this point can already increase its benefits.

“The Department of Health is now the third highest budget among the executive branches. We're next to the Department of Education and the Department of Public Works and Highways and it's now helped actually, but I can definitely use more money, and Philhealth can definitely increase the benefits,” said Herbosa.

To recall, the government has repeatedly reiterated that the return of PhilHealth’s excess funds will not affect the roll out of additional member benefits this year.

In previous statements, government executives have stated that the number of generic drugs available for outpatient treatments like hypertension will more than double to 53 from the current 21.