OFW FORUM
Jun Concepcion
Overseas Filipinos who are members of PhilHealth should not worry too much about paying more for their membership to the state-owned health services agency.
PhilHealth vice president and spokesperson Shirley Domingo said members stand to receive better and expanded benefits under plans now under consideration by the health agency.
“Benefit coverage is planned to be increased and expanded so that more Filipinos can be served better. This is the fundamental basis for the premium increase,” Domingo told Manila Bulletin.
She justified the increase in PhilHealth’s membership contribution, saying “the premium adjustment will help sustain the current level of benefits as well as further expand the health care benefits being made available not only for members and their qualified dependents.”
“These improved benefits include additional hemodialysis sessions, mental health package for outpatient services, and the full financial protection for health care workers.”
Domingo added: “This will also provide sufficient funding for the continuing rollout of our ‘Konsulta’ (primary care) package which consists of initial and follow-up consultations with primary care physicians, 12 diagnostic tests and 19 drugs and medicines based on the health condition of the patients.”
“Members can look forward to availing of their PhilHealth benefits whenever and wherever a medical situation arise in the family,” she added.
Domingo explained that while OFW PhilHealth members are at work overseas, PhilHealth membership benefits can be availed of by their immediate family members back home under certain terms and conditions.
“PhilHealth members may declare their legal spouse who is not a PhilHealth member, legitimate and illegitimate children below 21 years old, unmarried and unemployed and parents who are below 60 years old but are suffering from permanent disability that renders them totally dependent on the member for support as qualified dependents,” Domingo said.
While some OFWs may have some valid grounds for their gripes against the mandatory payment of elevated PhilHealth membership contributions, many can and should also be called out and even be criticized for failing to put in place an emergency health service aid package for their immediate family members back home.
Unlike Marvel heroes in the movies or Darna on TV, no human being is immortal and immune from getting sick, even seriously ill. A major health issue or problem can strike anyone in any OFW family back home any time, often when it is least expected.
Cases in point are the following:
Casimera D, a 44-year-old domestic helper in Hong Kong, earns a steady ₱31,000 net monthly income plus about ₱5,000 from her Youtube videos. But a medical emergency suddenly broke out in her family one day. Her elder brother’s life was once imperiled due to a seemingly innocuous foot wound which became seriously infected aggravated by tetanus.
She had to raise ₱180,000 immediately to save her brother’s life. At that time though, she had no PhilHealth membership to fall back on and she had little savings.
Fortunately, her kind Chinese employer had earlier assisted her channel part of her income into a US stocks investment which Casimera abruptly decided to sell off to raise the needed amount that saved her brother’s life.
Jericho C., a long-time office worker also in Hong Kong, one day received an emergency message from his doctor cousin in Manila. Dengue struck his two children and they had to be admitted quickly to a hospital. A hospital deposit of ₱80,000 was required for each child, but Jericho didn’t have enough money at that time and he also didn’t have a PhilHealth membership as fallback option.
Good thing Jericho’s doctor-cousin thought of staking his credentials to guarantee payment for his nephew and niece. That saved the day for the two dengue-stricken children and they were both admitted to a hospital on the spot.
In both emergency health situations, a PhilHealth membership could have been very helpful and useful.
Sadly, scores of OFWs still regard in a somewhat negative light the significant increase in PhilHealth’s membership rate.
Nell Solita in Hong Kong is among them, especially after she forked out ₱38,400 for her lump sum payment of PhilHealth contribution as condition for her to process her work papers in Manila to be able to get back to her overseas work. The difficulties of raising that significant sum at the tail end of her holiday in the country when she was already short of cash must have riled her no end.
Presumably made aware of certain resentments to the increased PhilHealth membership contribution rate from ₱400 to as much as ₱3,200 each month, Congressman Joey Salceda has vowed to file anew a bill in which he will seek a comprehensive overhaul of PhilHealth’s health services delivery scheme. A magazine has cited Salceda as making this pledge even as he purportedly also criticized the increase in the mandatory members’ premium contribution for their membership in PhilHealth.
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