The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) on Wednesday said it is studying to implement another round of 30-percent increase in all its benefit packages.

During the House Appropriations Committee hearing on the proposed budget of the Department of Health (DOH) for 2025, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said the public can expect another increase in health benefits by the end of this year.

“We are in the process of studying another round of 30 percent [increase] almost across-the-board. I can commit to this Committee that this will happen before Christmas Day,” he said.

PhilHealth implemented a 30-percent increase in the coverage rates of most of its benefit packages on Feb. 14, 2024 to reduce the out-of-pocket medical expenses of Filipinos.

Health Secretary Ted Herbosa also expressed commitment to review the benefits and include new procedures in the PhilHealth benefits.

“We will review as requested… all these packages we have also been pushing as chair in the PhilHealth (Board of Directors) as I have been telling the board,” Herbosa said.

Agri party-list Rep. Wilbert Lee, during the hearing, reiterated his call to increase the PhilHealth benefits using the enormous funds of the agency.

Under his House Resolution No. 1900, Lee cited PhilHealth’s availability of substantial funds and the transfer of PHP89.9 billion in excess savings to the national treasury, proving that it is more than able to expand its benefit packages and can even introduce new benefits to cover more of the actual hospitalization costs.

“Hindi dapat pinatatagal ito. Hindi ko ito tatantanan hanggang maipatupad (We should not delay this. I won’t stop until this is implemented). I will be left with no choice but to move to defer the DOH budget for the year 2025 at the proper time during our plenary deliberations if this remains unaddressed,” Lee said. (PNA)