MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) rejected proposals to redirect the budget for the Medical Assistance for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) Program to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), citing the latter’s payment delays.

MAIFIP is a DOH-funded program that provides financial assistance for patients who cannot afford medical expenses. It covers costs that exceed PhilHealth’s packages.

“May delay pa rin ang bayad, pati private nga ‘di ba nagrereklamo sa’kin na hindi sila binabayaran, may utang ang PhilHealth. Ba’t mo ibibigay ang pera du’n?” DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said in a chance interview on Friday, December 19.

(PhilHealth has payment delays, even private hospitals complain that the state insurer owes them. Why would you then redirect the budget there?)

PhilHealth — a government-owned and -controlled corporation attached to the DOH — pays accredited hospitals using an All Case Rates system in which the state insurer covers a fixed amount per illness or procedure to ease a patient’s out-of-pocket costs.

A recent Commission on Audit report, however, showed PhilHealth has P1 billion worth of unpaid hospital claims.

Herbosa’s remark came after the Healthcare Professionals Alliance suggested using the MAIFIP budget to fund PhilHealth, expressing concern over the program being used as a “pork barrel” through guarantee or endorsement letters.

An endorsement or guarantee letter is not a MAIFIP requirement, but some patients said they cannot avail themselves of the program without a guarantee or endorsement letter from a politician.

The group also noted that PhilHealth needs P147 billion to cover the premiums of 24.5 million indigent Filipinos.

The health secretary also disagreed with comments about the MAIFIP being a “new pork barrel.”

“Hindi naman siya binibigay du’n sa patient; sa ospital binibigay (The MAIFIP fund is given to the hospital, not the patient),” Herbosa said.

“Manghihingi ka lang du’n sa fund kung maliit masyado ‘yung PhilHealth [coverage or] meron ka pang dapat bayaran sa ospital…. So, anong pork barrel du’n?“

(You only tap MAIFIP if the PhilHealth coverage is too small or if you have other hospital expenses. How is that pork barrel?)

For 2026, the bicameral conference committee, which reconciles the budget bills of the Senate and the House of Representatives, increased PhilHealth’s budget to P129.7 billion from P53 billion under the proposed National Expenditure Program (NEP).

The bicam also agreed to boost the MAIFIP budget to P51 billion from P24 billion under the NEP.

Before agreeing on the reconciled MAIFIP budget, the bicam’s Senate contingent raised that the MAIFIP program would perpetuate patronage of public officials through guarantee letters. But the House counterpart said about 1.1 million patients would be affected if the funding is reduced from P51 billion pending the full implementation of the universal healthcare law. – Rappler.com