Manila Bulletin
Decision on PhilHealth abolition is President’s prerogative --- DOH
The Department of Health (DOH) assures the public that the government will provide a financial mechanism to cover healthcare needs if the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is abolished.
Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire stated that the government will not allow Filipinos to suffer financial hardship regarding their health needs should President Duterte's suggestion to abolish PhilHealth push through.
President Duterte had earlier proposed the abolition of PhilHealth due to allegations of massive corruption within the state health insurer.
Vergeire emphasized that the President has the prerogative to privatize or abolish PhilHealth based on presented evidence, but stressed the government's commitment to ensuring a replacement financial mechanism.
PhilHealth officials are under scrutiny for allegedly misusing P15 billion from the Internal Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) fund, which provided advance payments to hospitals regardless of their COVID-19 patient load.
Records from PhilHealth indicate that only P5.5 billion out of the P15 billion allocated for the IRM has been accounted for.
Topics in this story
Explore more stories about these topics.
🤖
This story was generated by AI to help you understand the key points. For more detailed coverage, please see the news articles from trusted media outlets below.
News Sources
See how different news organizations are covering this story. Below are the original articles from various Philippine news sources that contributed to this summary.
President Rodrigo Duterte plans to propose the abolition of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to Congress to eradicate corruption.
Read more →
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra clarified that the Task Force PhilHealth recommended to the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) to study a reorganization and the establishment of a temporary management committee, not the abolition of the state insurer.
Read more →
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque opposes the privatization of PhilHealth, stating it contradicts the principle of Universal Health Care, which is a state obligation.
Read more →
PhilHealth President and CEO Dante Gierran has ordered all vice presidents, senior vice presidents, and senior managers to submit their courtesy resignations as part of his reform efforts for the state insurer.
Read more →
Malacañang assured the public that the government remains committed to holding PhilHealth officials accountable for alleged corruption and anomalies.
Read more →