TARLAC CITY—Indonesian officials, including a mayor, visited President Aquino’s home province of Tarlac on Wednesday to study Gov. Victor Yap’s health-care program anchored on the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
Yap welcomed in his office the Indonesian delegation led by Mayor Dadang Naser of Bandung, West Java province and Dr. Fahmi Idris, member of the National Social Security Council (NSSC) and Indonesian Medical Association.
PhilHealth Central Luzon Branch Manager Arsenia Torres, who accompanied the 10-member group, said the NSSC is the counterpart of the PhilHealth in Indonesia.
The delegation said they wanted to study Tarlac’s health program in partnership with PhilHealth.
“We want to apply [the health-care program] in Indonesia. It is effective here,” said Dr. TB Rachmat Sentika, senior adviser to The Minister of Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare.
Yap said that aside from the PhilHealth program, he had tapped the 18 Tarlac mayors to help him “properly handle” the province’s health-care project involving some 1.3 million residents.
The two-term governor said that they spend “much more” when helping non-PhilHealth members with their hospital bill and expenses. “It’s really hard to collect from the poor. So we really need PhilHealth,” he said.
Yap said that at least 65 percent of Tarlac residents are covered by PhilHealth.
“We have a long way to go. But 10 years ago, only a fraction or 3,000 people are covered by PhilHealth,” said Yap.
Pampanga and Bulacan are top in the enrolled beneficiaries of PhilHealth among Central Luzon provinces.
Torres said that “Yap is supportive of the affordable health-care insurance in the province.”
Bulacan has 813,382 PhilHealth members as of December, while Pampanga has 736,484. The other provinces and their respective number of PhilHealth members are: Tarlac, 416,852; Bataan, 244,427; Zambales, 233,501; Aurora, 51,735; and Nueva Ecija, 423,474. Torres supervises Pampanga, Zambales, Tarlac and Bataan.
PhilHealth Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Banzon had repeatedly said that the 102 million Filipinos should be covered by the government’s National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).
In the latest PhilHealth data bulletin, 28.5 million are registered members and 79.44 million are enrolled beneficiaries, or about 80 percent of the country’s total population. Members whose children are aged 20 years and younger are covered by the health insurance.
