The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is urging the Philippines to extend “roaming” health insurance to migrant workers to prevent them from losing their jobs and falling into poverty.
In an Asian Development Blog, ADB Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department Principal Health Specialist Eduardo P. Banzon said the Asean can act as “launch pad” for roaming health coverage, similar to the European Union.
“In a world where borders are blurring and becoming increasingly permeable, health coverage needs to be just as mobile. If not, it will never be truly universal,” Banzon said.
Based on the ADB’s Asian Economic Integration Report 2016, Asia and the Pacific is the largest source of international migrants at 83.3 million, or more than a third of the 243.7 million migrants worldwide as of 2015. Intraregional migration, meanwhile, stood at 30.6 million in 2015.
Banzon said these numbers will likely increase, especially in light of the Asean community and its aim of making it easier for workers to cross borders.
He said the increase in movement across borders into growing and interconnected economies will make roaming universal health coverage a reality.
Banzon said migrants are considered “informal communities” who are vulnerable to various communicable and noncommunicable diseases.
The ADB expert said these include mental-health disorders, maternal mortality, substance use, alcoholism and malnutrition.
They are also prone to being victims of violence and face numerous barriers to decent health care, especially if they are considered illegal in their host countries.
“For low-income migrant workers from developing countries of Asia and the Pacific, getting sick may not only put them at risk of losing their jobs and income, with huge bills to pay. It may very well drive them into poverty,” Banzon said.
Pushing for universal health care across borders will also ease the financial burden of out-of-pocket expenditures for health needs.
Banzon said household out-of-pocket payments for health-care services often account for over 50 percent of total health spending in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, India, Pakistan and the Philippines.
In the Philippines data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed households remained the largest spenders for health at 68 percent of health expenses and the government is a far second at 17 percent.
“The Philippines requires its outgoing migrant workers to get health- insurance coverage, but this means paying upfront and getting reimbursed later,” Banzon said.
PSA data also showed per-capita health expenditure in the country rose 8.5 percent to P5,859 in 2014 from P5,400 in 2013 at current prices.
Total health expenditure increased 10.4 percent to P585.3 billion in 2014 from P530.3 billion in 2013 at current prices.
Social Insurance outpaced the growth in government, private or other sources of health expenditures in 2014. It registered the highest growth with 38 percent increase to P83.3 billion in 2014 from P60.4 billion in 2013.