Increasing PhilHealth benefits 'doable,' says lawmaker

The Manila Times

Increasing PhilHealth benefits 'doable,' says lawmaker  House of Representatives' Majority Leader and Iloilo Rep. Janette Loreto-Garin, in a press conference on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, believes that increasing the benefits of the State-run Philippine Health Insurance Corporation for its members are "doable" but says that reforms have to be instituted in curbing fraud. She also said that some provisions of the Universal Health Care law must be amended, including requiring a Phase Four Clinical Trial for vaccines before it can be used.   Video by Red Mendoza  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe  Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #TheManilaTimes  #tmtnews  #universalhealthcare  #philhealth

Transcript

00:00 What do you think is the common thing that's happening in the Universal Health Care Program?

00:05 Are we doing more or are we doing an improvement from our plan for universal health care?

00:15 There is an improvement.

00:17 But again, I go back to what I have been saying since the time this law was passed.

00:22 When the law was passed, there were two killer provisions that should have been amended.

00:29 It became difficult because the authors of the bill refused to accept that it's not a perfect law.

00:35 That's how it is. There is no perfect law.

00:37 First of all, if you look at the Universal Health Care Law, what is spearheaded is basically PhilHealth.

00:43 It's not like that. It should be the Department of Health.

00:47 The DOH was vilified.

00:49 The department was destroyed, destroyed, and destroyed.

00:53 That's why the lawmakers were forced to make PhilHealth the major implementer of the Universal Health Care.

00:59 That cannot happen because it's the Department of Health.

01:02 Second, the system was destroyed by saying that clinical trials should finish phase 4

01:11 before the Philippines accepts any vaccine, device, or medicine.

01:18 The whole world should be given a country that requires phase 4 for each clinical trial.

01:27 That's not true.

01:28 We were brought back to the Stone Age.

01:31 So how can you have universal health care

01:34 if the medicine used by the whole world will be used for 5 to 10 years before the Philippines allows it?

01:43 The vaccine will be used for 5 to 10 years in other countries before it is allowed in the Philippines.

01:50 By the time we allow it in, it's obsolete because it changed again.

01:55 So these are two killer provisions in the universal health care.

01:59 In universal health care, there can't be no medicine, no vaccine, no medical device.

02:05 We have to accept that if we just base it on nature alone, that's why there's the CNSh.

02:13 Let's combine nature and CNSh.

02:16 So if we don't amend those two killer provisions,

02:19 the good promises of the universal health care cannot be 100% implemented.

02:28 For more information, visit www.fema.gov

02:36 FEMA.gov

Transcript

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