Even without a PhilHealth identification card, patients may avail themselves of health benefits once the 2017 national budget is signed into law, Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto said on Tuesday.

Congress has already approved the P3.35 trillion national budget next year and it will be transmitted to President Rodrigo Duterte for signature.

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Recto said the Senate has included in the budget a provision that would no longer require patients seeking treatment in hospitals to present a PhilHealth card as a condition to avail themselves of benefits from the state health insurer.

The scrapping of the “No PhilHealth ID, No benefits” policy, he said, was just one of the many provisions that the Senate had crafted to guarantee universal health coverage.

The senator said the budget provision, which he initiated, states that “in the attainment of universal coverage, no Filipino, whether a PhilHealth member or not, shall be denied of PhilHealth benefits.”

“PhilHealth identification card is not necessary in the availment of benefits,” it further said.

But the major PhilHealth-related initiative, Recto said, was the one pushed by Senator Loren Legarda, who appropriated P3 billion to pay for the insurance premiums of an estimated “last 8 million uninsured Filipinos.”

Legarda chairs the Senate committee on finance that deliberated and endorsed the approval of next year’s budget.

Recto said the P3 billion Senate infusion sponsored by Legarda “will close the last mile in health insurance.”

“This is the culmination of a long work process through successive administrations. In 2001, at the start of GMA’s term, the number of sponsored beneficiaries was just 200,000 urban poor families,” he said. GMA is former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“Then the number of the sponsored increased yearly. By 2010, the individuals covered, including self-paying, numbered 78 million. President Aquino added 20 million new enrollees, increased the paying members to about 45 million, plus retained the previous grantees and expanded the benefits,” Recto added.

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As a result of the Senate augmentation, the funding for PhilHealth social insurance program had been raised to P53.2 billion, which, he said, will cover 15.4 million indigent families, 3.3 to 5.5 million senior citizens, and 48,000 individuals under the government peace and reconciliation “PAMANA” program, and the last 8 million uninsured individuals.

Recto said the inclusion of senior citizens “under the medicare umbrella” was made pursuant to Republic Act 10645, mandating automatic PhilHealth coverage for 60 year olds and above.

The “No ID” rule in RA 10645 for seniors, seeking medical services, is also being expanded to cover all, the senator said./ac/rga

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