Photo Release

February 1, 2023

Amendments to UHC: Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito presides over the public hearing conducted by the Committee on Health and Demography to discuss amendments to Republic Act No. 11223 or the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act. Ejercito, who authored the UHC, said there is a need to amend the law to make it more responsive to the time. “The reason why we propose the amendments is because we only realized the flaws and the necessary adjustments that are needed once it was implemented. There is no perfect law. UHC is a work in progress,” Ejercito said Wednesday, February 1, 2023. Ejercito has filed an amendment to repeal the penalty interest of missed Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) contributions of self-earning, professional practitioners and migrant workers. Under the bill, distressed or repatriated migrant workers shall not be required to pay their missed PhilHealth contributions. “To the overseas Filipino workers and our workers, I hope they will understand that at the time we were drafting the law, I did not anticipate the pandemic. The world’s economy, the Philippine economy was good. The data, the numbers that we used as reference was based on the circumstances at the time. But because of the pandemic, it is not only the Philippines, it is not only our workers that struggled but the whole world. That is why we have to adapt to the whole situation,” Ejercito added. (Voltaire F. Domingo/Senate PRIB)

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