Sen. Ralph Recto yesterday said in a press release that there’s no need to impose a 160-percent increase in the members’ contributions to Philippine Health Insurance Corp., considering its enormous cash “reserves” and huge subsidies from government.

“PhilHealth could achieve viability and attain efficacy in its delivery of services without having to impose another burden to its members, which is essentially another form of payroll tax,” Recto said.

Like deductions for withholding tax, SSS/GSIS, and Pag-IBIG, PhilHealth contributions are also automatically deducted from the payroll of workers.

Recto said PhilHealth may always decide to tap its retained earnings, which have peaked to P110 billion in 2010, to bankroll expansion of services and benefits such as reducing “out of pocket expenses” of members.

He said that aside from sitting on its retained earnings that could eclipse by two-fold the entire budget of the Department of Health, PhilHealth is also a consistent top recipient of state subsidies.

From January to November in 2011, PhilHealth was among the top agencies that have received the biggest slice of the P45.205 billion subsidies given out to state-owned corporations, the press release said.

In the first half of last year, PhilHealth already racked up P5.1 billion in subsidies from government, it added.

The same GOCC is expected to receive the biggest part of this year’s programmed GOCC subsidy of P18.7 billion, the press release also said.

On top of the subsidies, PhilHealth stands to receive P1.5 billion in the 2012 budget to cover premium payment arrears covering 2.9 million indigent families.

“What happened to these subsidies? And what are you doing with your billions in retained earnings?” Recto asked.

In a circular approved by its board, PhilHealth premium contributions for new members will increase from P300 to P600 quarterly or a total of P2,400 per year.

Covered by the increase are members who are earning P25,000 a year based on their income tax returns.*

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