Senate Finance Committee chair Senator Sonny Angara on Sunday renewed his call for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to settle all of its obligations, particularly to private hospitals.

Angara noted PhilHealth’s financial obligations to private hospitals have accumulated to billions of pesos over time, prompting Congress to increase government subsidies provided to the state health insurance agency from P71.3-billion in 2021 to nearly P80-billion in 2022 under next year's proposed national budget.

The senator said the increase in subsidies was necessary to ensure that all Filipinos are covered by health insurance under the Universal Health Care law.

“Universal health care is already a problem to fund even before the pandemic, so we should aim to increase that funding over time to cover the entire country,” Angara said in a statement.

He further said PhilHealth should expedite processing the claims of the hospitals, which at one point was pegged at around P20-billion.

Angara pointed out the delays in the settlement of the claims has also led to fears that affected hospitals would downscale operations or possibly opt for closure.

Many of these private hospitals have also aired their intention to end their partnership with PhilHealth because of the delayed payment of claims, the lawmaker noted.

“In the end, all of these issues, if not addressed, will adversely affect the patients, particularly the less fortunate who will have fewer options for their health care requirements,” he said.

“This is one big problem and PhilHealth must come out with immediate solutions. Pag nadelay ang bayad maaaring magsara ilan dyan. Pag hindi naman nagsara mas kaunti maseservice na patients. Sana mabigyan ng agarang solusyon ito (if they delay payments, some of the hospitals might just close operations. If not, there’s a chance they can only serve a limited number of patients. I hope they provide immediate solution to this problem), ” he added.

Angara also said the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARETA) can intervene on the case of PhilHealth and the private hospitals to speed up the settlement of obligations.

“We are still in the midst of the biggest health crisis of our generation and we cannot afford inefficiencies by our institutions that are tasked to take care of our people who are sick and dying,” Angara said.