THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) allocated P1.5 billion to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to boost its viability to serve the needs of the poor.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the fund would cover some 2.9 million needy families.

The release completes the P6.5 billion in unpaid obligations left by the previous government. The fund’s release is part of the P72-billion disbursements acceleration plan for 2011.

“In support of the President’s vision for universal health-care coverage for all, especially the poor and the vulnerable, we need to settle our obligations with [PhilHealth] which, if left unpaid, might affect its performance in the long run,” Abad said. “More important, as we are settling these payables, we have been allocating more public funds to subsidize the health-insurance premiums of indigent families.”

For the year, the government has set aside P3.5 billion for the National Health Insurance Program, which will be released after a new guideline is finalized and issued by the DBM, PhilHealth and the Department of Health. The amount will benefit about 4.7 million poor families and 1.4 million squatter households.

This amount will be increased to P12 billion in 2012 and benefit some 5.7 million poor families with wider health-care coverage.

The beneficiaries will be chosen from the identified poor under the National Household Targeting System that the Department of Social Welfare and Development uses in identifying and reaching poor and squatter or informal-sector households.

In May the DBM released P5 billion for premium-payment arrears. The government only remitted P3.85 billion to the PhilHealth from 2007 to 2010, but the supposed total government counterpart payment was P10.35 billion, leaving a balance of P6.5 billion.