EDITORIAL — PhilHealth better get its act together
PhilHealth is in the spotlight again for the wrong reasons.
A widow took to social media after the state health insurer denied her husband’s benefits, saying that he had been hospitalized for less than 24 hours.
He died in one hospital after they moved him from another where they couldn’t pay the ?1 million deposit asked for, something also worth discussing separately.
“My husband had just died. How could he not be eligible? I was only asking for the benefits that my husband spent more than 25 years contributing to. He was a lifelong member. He paid faithfully throughout his working years," she said.
Her plight has reached Senator Bong Go, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, and Senator JV Ejercito, author and principal sponsor of the Universal Health Care Act.
In a statement posted on Facebook last Sunday, June 14, PhilHealth said that it “mobilized” upon learning of the incident to “understand and address the situation.”
“We have since reached out to the member's wife and have agreed on the next steps as we explore all avenues of support,” the statement read.
We wonder what “action” PhilHealth would have taken, or if it would have done anything at all, if this incident hadn’t gone viral, or caught the attention of Senators Go and Ejercito.
Incidents like these make us wonder if all the money we have been giving to PhilHealth all these years is actually a waste.
Incidents like these also make us wonder whether or not PhilHealth is totally aware of all the policies it made or is enforcing. Or if it is willing to circumvent some of those policies if the heat becomes too much, if you get our meaning.
The money that contributors give to PhilHealth belongs to them, not to PhilHealth. The state insurer isn’t a business that should hold on to people’s money --most especially after they have died.
PhilHealth better get its act together. They must realize that for people like the widow mentioned above, they are the only form of relief when it comes to medical emergencies.
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