How Much Do Filipinos Spend On Their Health? [Infographic]

Written by Mariae Francesca Ramos Illustration by Azreen Chan

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in August reported that Filipinos have spent a total of P526.3 billion in healthcare alone in 2013, and this cost has been rising steadily every year. But what’s more alarming is the fact that half or 56.3% of these payments had been made in cash.

For this reason, more than a three-quarters of the population admitted to having struggled securing money to cover their medical expenses, according to the National Demographic and Health Survey in 2008.

Although social health insurance PhilHealth has increased its span, covering more than 90 million Filipinos, its benefits would insure only a fraction of the total cost of hospital bills. And Filipinos are left to cope with the remainder of the cost.

While for most cases this would mean a couple of thousands, 7.7% of the time payments would reach catastrophic — or eat up more than 10% of Filipino’s household’s expenses — and increase almost tenfold, according to estimates of a World Bank report on Universal Health Coverage in the Philippines.

With the rising cost of healthcare in the Philippines, and the high risk of catastrophic payments that threaten households, additional health insurance provide a viable option to help cushion the high cost of payments.

However, only 1.9% or 1.89 million Filipinos take advantage of private health insurance to ease their burden.

Take a look at the numbers that Filipinos bear on their wallets on healthcare alone in this infographic.