Protecting the vulnerable through social health insurance: PhilHealth’s KASAPI as a strategy

The high cost of health care can produce severe financial shock on poor households that can ill afford it. Faced with catastrophic health care spending, poor households are forced to reduce their expenses on basic items such as food, transportation, and education; use their savings, if there are any; or borrow in order to cope with the medical bills of one or more of their members. Prolonged—and at times—fatal illness of the household head could mean deeper poverty for the rest of the household.