Legislating regulation for the Philippine HMO industry

Abstract

This paper examines the process of legislating regulation for the Philippine health maintenance organization (HMO) industry. It particularly looks at how interest groups compete with each other and attempt to influence legislation of the regulation law. We find that a substantial number of government agencies and private organizations, principally the Association of Health Maintenance Organizations of the Philippines Inc. (AHMOPI), lobbied for or influenced legislation. The result of lobbying, “The HMO Act of 2003”, appears to be a compromise settlement among the interest groups, with the association taking the biggest slice of the pie.

JEL classification: I18, L51