SC justice Lopez: PhilHealth covered P50,000 of my P7-M hospital bill

Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Jhosep Lopez has shared that the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) only covered a small portion of his almost P7-million hospital bill after he underwent treatment for esophageal cancer years ago.

Lopez made the remark during the resumption of the oral arguments seeking to block the transfer of PhilHealth's excess funds to the national treasury.

"Two years ago, I was treated for esophageal cancer which went into my lungs and I had to be confined for more than two months in one hospital in Metro Manila," Lopez said.

"If I recall it correctly, my bill runs up to almost P7 million," he added.

He asked lawyer Paula Mae Tanquieng, the counsel of the petitioners, to guess how much of the bill was covered by PhilHealth.

Tanquieng said she was pretty sure that it was "not more than 10%."

In response, Lopez said he was sure that it was "less than 2%."

"Definitely much lower than 10%. It's only P50,000. I don’t know how to compute it but I'm sure it's less than 2%," Lopez said.

In Lopez's case, the PhilHealth coverage was actually less than 1%. To be more precise, it was 0.7143%.

Following the treatment, Lopez said he had to undergo several procedures costing around P40,000.

"Again, I went to see PhilHealth, personally. I asked how much can be covered by PhilHealth and PhilHealth told me, I've run out of money. They cannot answer any of the P40,000, despite the fact that I've been regularly paying PhilHealth," he said.

Meanwhile, PhilHealth Senior Vice President Renato Limsiaco Jr. said the state-run firm is eyeing to increase its coverage of hospital bills to 18% this year.

The oral proceedings stemmed from the petitions asking the high court to issue a TRO and/or a writ of preliminary injunction to prevent the transfer of PhilHealth funds.

These were concluded Thursday after five days of interpellation. — VDV, GMA Integrated News