Nograles wants mandatory PhilHealth coverage for all maids

MANILA, Philippines – Speaker Prospero Nograles is urging the Senate to approve a House bill that will compel all private employers to enroll their housemaids in the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) under the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

“We should never discriminate against house-helpers, considering the very significant role they play in nation building,” he said, as he commended principal author Leyte Rep. Carmen Cari for her “genuine pro-labor” initiative.

House Bill 1979 amends a previous law that only allows private employees or laborers earning P1,000 a month to be covered by PhilHealth insurance, which means those earning less than P1,000 are excluded from PhilHealth and Social Security System (SSS) coverage.

“This discrepancy runs counter to the mandatory and compulsory coverage of all citizens of the Philippines in the program as required by law,” Nograles said in a statement.

The House approved the measure before it adjourned sine die last June 11.

Under HB 1979, all house-helpers that are receiving a minimum wage of less than P1,000 a month are mandated to be enrolled by their employers in the program and should shoulder the required contributions to PhilHealth.

Nograles said the bill “seeks to eliminate the decades-old grave discrimination against the lowly but very significant sector of the labor force, by protecting their rights and privileges as workers and upholding their dignity as human beings.”

“HB 1979 would ensure quality health care services that are affordable, acceptable, available and accessible for the house-helpers,” Cari said, adding that penalties for non-compliance by employers are to be dealt with under pertinent laws.

The Speaker clarified that even if the present PhilHealth law was really intended to cover all citizens, under the SSS Law, only those house-helpers receiving at least P1,000 a month are covered and entitled to all benefits provided by law.

Furthermore, the National Health Insurance Act of 1995 (RA 7875) provides that all employees in the private sector covered by the SSS are immediately and automatically made members of the NHIP.

He noted that under RA 7655, otherwise known as “An Act Increasing the Minimum Wage of House-helpers,” a maid in Metro Manila and highly urbanized cities receives a minimum of P800 a month.