EDITORIAL — Less for PhilHealth, more for MAIFIP

For 2027, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. proposed a budget of P244 billion. Congress is slashing this to just P74 billion, according to healthcare professionals and budget watchdogs.

Meanwhile, Congress doubled the P24 billion proposed for the Medical Assistance for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients to P49 billion. Critics have tagged MAIFIP as a medical pork barrel of politicians, who get to endorse beneficiaries of the controversial program using guarantee letters.

The GLs, President Marcos vowed at his State of the Nation Address this year, would be eliminated, even as his government continued to reject the proposal of medical groups and healthcare professionals to abolish the health ayuda program and channel its funds to an expanded PhilHealth.

Promises must be subjected to a reading between the lines. The Department of Health, which administers MAIFIP, no longer requires GLs for people to avail themselves of the program. But the Department of Social Welfare and Development still has a GL system for lawmakers, local government executives and other politicians to dole out patronage through MAIFIP. 

At a press conference this week, the Healthcare Professionals Alliance After COVID-19 pointed out that the P74 billion approved for PhilHealth would be used up by March next year. The alliance said PhilHealth in fact needed P376.7 billion to cover new benefits.

During the press conference, the alliance also demanded the immediate release to PhilHealth of P133.2 billion in unappropriated sin tax earmarks from 2023 to 2027 plus P85 billion in unappropriated earmarks from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

The alliance reiterated criticisms raised against MAIFIP since Congress and the executive created the medical pork barrel and diverted billions from PhilHealth: MAIFIP fund utilization is highly discretionary and often without proper medical basis, and reduces patients to begging rather than enjoying health care as a right of every Filipino citizen. 

Even private hospitals have complained that the government has been slow in reimbursing treatment provided through politicians’ GLs.

Government priorities can be gleaned from the position of the DOH: its chief has said MAIFIP will be around all the way to the end of President Marcos’ term in 2028.