Senator Pia S. Cayetano, in her interpellation on Sen. JV Ejercito’s privilege speech on the Universal Healthcare program, explained how the risk-sharing scheme under PhilHealth’s YAKAP package works. She explained how P1,700 per person is pooled for an entire community and spent according to members’ varying health needs, “similar to how an HMO works.” The senator also cited the model of a U.S.-based HMO, Kaiser Permanente, which rewards members for engaging in healthy activities, noting that “the aim is to keep people healthy before they become patients.”
FInally, Cayetano raised the failure to appropriate the earmarked sin tax revenues to PhilHealth. “For 2025, P69.81 billion ang sin tax collection para sa PhilHealth, pero ang pumasok sa GAA is zero,” she said, adding that she will file as an intervenor in the pending Supreme Court case. “Kaya natin inearmark yon dahil nga yung mga bisyo na nakakasama sa tao, sana man lang may nakukuha doon pambayad sa gamot nila. Tapos hindi natin nakukuha.”