A lawmaker is urging the government to divert a portion of the proposed P49-billion budget for the Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) toward expanding the country’s zero-balance billing program, a key component of the Universal Healthcare Law.

Senator Win Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, argued that medical assistance should be institutionalized rather than reliant on discretionary funds, which often forces constituents to seek help from politicians.

“It pains me to see some people, our constituents, lining up in politicians’ offices for medical help,” Gatchalian said Sunday.

“We are putting the decision-making power on life and death in the hands of politicians, which is not the right thing to do because the system should help our constituents,” he added.

The senator proposed a shift in funding strategy, stating, “Let’s just allocate MAIFIP funds to the zero-balance billing program. We should reform our Universal Healthcare system to ensure access to quality health services for all Filipinos without financial hardship.”

The Senate finance panel has maintained that the zero-balance billing program, in conjunction with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), should be sufficient to assist patients seeking treatment in public hospitals.

He, however, stressed that expanding the zero-balance billing program must be accompanied by an increase in the absorptive capacity of public hospitals and warned that many public hospitals have already exceeded their bed capacity, and fully implementing the zero-balance billing program could strain hospital resources even further by driving occupancy rates higher.