Leaders of healthcare professional organizations in the Philippines are calling for a more adequate budget for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) for 2027, saying the proposed allocation falls short of the state insurer's expected funding requirements for next year.

In a statement signed by more than 60 healthcare societies and organizations, the groups said discretionary health patronage funds such as the Medical for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) also pose issues with transparency and accountability, as they are easily politicized and are inflationary.

PhilHealth is the government-run corporation that administers the Philippines' national health insurance program, a mandate expanded under the Universal Health Care Act of 2019, which automatically enrolls all Filipino citizens. Because coverage is universal, the size of the insurer's annual allocation helps determine what benefits are actually available to the entire population, which is why its budget line has drawn scrutiny during the 2027 appropriations deliberations.

"PhilHealth projects they will need a budget of P376 billion [for next year]. The P244 billion is the status quo, which covers the benefits as it stands. But if we want to expand benefits further, we will need the P376 billion," Jeremy Cordero of the Healthcare Professionals Alliance Against Covid-19 (HPAAC) said at a press conference on Tuesday, speaking in Tagalog.

Noting the proposed P74-billion budget, HPAAC Convenor Antonio Dans said there is still a P170-billion funding gap for PhilHealth for 2027. He explained that PhilHealth needs P244 billion to cover existing benefits and P376.7 billion to extend coverage to new benefits.

"This proposed P74-billion budget will run dry as early as March 2027," he said.

The arithmetic underpins the groups' warning: the proposed allocation sits well below even the P244 billion PhilHealth says it needs to keep current benefits intact, and the shortfall emerges while Congress can still adjust the figure before the spending measure is finalized.

Health worker groups also called for the abolition of MAIFIP after Congress doubled the program's budget to P49 billion from P24 billion at the Budget Amendments and Review Subcommittee on Oct. 1.

Mr. Dans added that MAIFIP can be inflationary because it could prompt medicine vendors to sell to the program instead of PhilHealth due to higher prices.

At the core of the groups' position is a question of channel: whether medical assistance for poor patients flows through discretionary patronage funds, which they argue are easily politicized, or through PhilHealth's rules-based benefit structure under the Universal Health Care Act.

The healthcare professional groups said the funds should instead be directly transferred to PhilHealth and converted into transparent, rules-based health benefits, including effective zero-balance billing for indigent and financially incapacitated patients, so that eligible patients are not left with out-of-pocket balances for covered care.

How Congress settles the proposed P74-billion allocation, and whether MAIFIP's doubled P49 billion is realigned to the state insurer, remains the immediate item to watch as the 2027 budget moves through deliberations toward final approval.

Original report by Aaron Michael C. Sy, BusinessWorld.