Health insurance program for indigent kids backed
POSTED January 8, 2009 - 19:36 | POSTED BY Harleen Kaur
Last edited by Shikha Patial on January 8, 2009 - 20:47
Manila, Philippines, January 8: Efforts are on to establish a Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover nearly 14 million Filipino children belonging to low-income families. A separate health insurance plan for indigent children has been proposed in the Senate. The proposed health insurance program is being seen as an investment to raise a strong and a healthy nation ahead.
CHIP will provide health care facilities including periodical health checkups, immunizations, prescription drugs and dental and eye care to children aged six and below.
PhilHealth (National Health Insurance Program )has nearly 16.2 million members out of which 4.95 million are indigent (as of December 2006).
“However, there remain 14 million poor children left out in health care delivery,” Senator Sen. Edgardo Angara stated.
While expressing his deep concern over the poor state of health facilities to the downtrodden, Senator Angara felt an immediate need for such programs, as the state could no longer afford to neglect the health of its people. His goal is to make health insurance coverage for these children free and mandatory. He acknowledged the fact that facing a financial crunch, poor families prefer to spend their meager resources on food thus neglecting their health care, which could be detrimental for the development of a nation.
“We need to make our children not only dependents of health insurance but beneficiaries themselves. Through this program, the government can significantly increase its investments in health thereby rescuing our young population from a health crisis,” Angara maintained.
In addition to the existing National Health Insurance Program), the senator felt a strong and an urgent need for the proposed health insurance plan to provide children with a wide range of health care services including regular checkups, laboratory tests, hospital and clinic visits, durable medical equipments during hospital visits, immunizations, prescription drugs, X-rays, dental and eye care.
