ILOILO Rep. Janette Garin yesterday said the call of Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito to replace Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) president Emmanuel Ledesma for his alleged failure to fully implement the Universal Healthcare (UHC) Law would be useless if Congress will not amend the law.
“We can change the PhilHealth chief a hundred times but unless we amend the law as soon as possible, universal health care can never be achieved,” Garin, former health secretary, said.
Garin vowed to refile her resolution urging the House committee on health to review some provisions of UHC Law, saying its objectives will not be fulfilled because of “killer provisions” that have to be amended.
“I call on the leadership of both houses to make the amendment to UHC a priority,” said Garin, who has been pushing for the law’s amendment since the 18th Congress.
Garin, a physician and vaccinologist, questioned Section 34 of the law, which mandates that health interventions such as medicines, vaccines and medical devices undergo Phase IV clinical study.
She said that after Phase III of a clinical trial, health interventions are already considered safe and efficacious.
“With this requirement of Phase IV, Filipinos will have no recourse but to go to other countries to gain access to any breakthrough in science. This Section 34 of UHC is just one of the many provisions deemed restrictive and detrimental to health care accessibility,” said Garin.
She criticized the creation of the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) which she said was influenced by anti-pharmaceutical groups and former officials who wanted to empower themselves.
Ejercito, an author and sponsor of the UHC Law, earlier said he is disappointed with the meager amount of PhilHealth’s contribution to patients’ hospital bills amid its announcement of billions in excess funds.
As an example, Ejercito showed during the Kapihan sa Senado media forum last Wednesday a patient’s hospital bill in the Philippine General Hospital, amounting to P270,894 but the deductible amount shared by PhilHealth was only P32,964, or only 12 percent of the total bill. Other hospital bills showed from only 0.69 percent to 8.28 percent PhilHealth share.
Ejercito said he will ask PhilHealth to explain the very low deductions in patients’ hospital bills during budget hearings.
