PhilHealth reaches out to self-employed

ILOILO CITY, Feb. 3 – The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) eyes a 100-percent coverage of Western Visayas as it reaches out to the unenrolled self-employed working class.

PhilHealth regional head Dennis Mas said the agency so far able to cover 80.97 percent of the population in the region.

Mas is encouraging the self-employed to organize themselves so as to avail of PhilHealth benefits. The groups to be covered are tricycle drivers on top of the city government coverage, sidewalk vendors, farm workers, especially the sacadas, and other working class.

On the other hand, the city government here through city mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, is giving out free PhiHealth coverage to more than 3,000 trike drivers in the city. Similarly, the city is slashing by almost 50 percent the regulatory trike fees from P350 to P165 for registration within the first quarter this year.

The PhilHealth official said the target full coverage is a mission of the national government in giving more assistance to the poor sector of society. Self-employed voluntary members will only have to pay P200 per month premium contribution but starting July 2012, will have to pay P600 per month as premium.

The universal coverage within 2012 will be 120 monthly contributions up to 60 years old.

Meanwhile, PhilHealth said that the LGU-sponsored indigents, whose membership expired last Dec. 31, 2011, were still covered until March 31, 2012 at no cost.

The extension of coverage of these local government sponsored indigents is for those not covered under the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) list of the Department of Social Welfare and Development without paying any premium contribution by the LGU.

PhilHealth Western Visayas has a record of 900,418 total covered members as of December 1011, of which 346,924 are NHTS-PR indigents and 553,494 are regular LGU-sponsored indigents. (PNA) RMA/ajp/LCPendon/vlo

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