{
  "id": "ph-medical-trend",
  "title": "Philippine private medical-trend rate",
  "metric": "Philippine private medical-trend rate (annual cost escalation)",
  "unit": "%",
  "kind": "percent",
  "volatility": "annual",
  "direction_note": "a double-digit medical-trend rate is the engine of the plan's failure — it compounds the cost of cover and care every year while a fixed or CPI-uprated pension does not, so the higher the rate the faster the self-pay gap opens\n",
  "publisher": "No Margin Left",
  "source": {
    "label": "Willis Towers Watson (WTW) — Global Medical Trends Survey, Philippines country projection",
    "url": "https://www.wtwco.com/en-in/insights/2025/12/asia-pacific-medical-inflation-continues-to-soar-in-2026"
  },
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "attribution": "No Margin Left, \"Philippine private medical-trend rate\" (Philippine private medical-trend rate (annual cost escalation)). CC BY 4.0. https://nomarginleft.com/data/ph-medical-trend.json",
  "canonical": "https://nomarginleft.com/data/ph-medical-trend.json",
  "csv": "https://nomarginleft.com/data/ph-medical-trend.csv",
  "retrieved": "2026-05-27",
  "stale": false,
  "observations": [
    {
      "date": "2024",
      "value": 18.5,
      "range": [
        18,
        19
      ],
      "source": {
        "label": "WTW Global Medical Trends Survey — reported Philippine prior-year actual for 2024, carried in the medical-inflation-thailand-vs-philippines sidecar (c3)",
        "url": "https://www.wtwco.com/en-in/insights/2025/12/asia-pacific-medical-inflation-continues-to-soar-in-2026"
      },
      "confidence": "sourced",
      "checked": "2026-05-27",
      "note": "WTW's reported actual Philippine medical trend for 2024, stated as a band (~18-19%); the point value is the midpoint of that band and the true range is carried in `range`. The highest of the three years on this ledger.\n"
    },
    {
      "date": "2025",
      "value": 18.3,
      "source": {
        "label": "WTW Philippines 2025 release (Global Medical Trends), carried in the medical-inflation-thailand-vs-philippines sidecar (c3)",
        "url": "https://www.wtwco.com/en-in/insights/2025/12/asia-pacific-medical-inflation-continues-to-soar-in-2026"
      },
      "confidence": "sourced",
      "checked": "2026-05-27",
      "note": "WTW's projected Philippine medical trend for 2025 (18.3%). A separate Philippine insurer survey (Mercer Marsh, 8 PH insurers, reported via BusinessWorld) put PH medical-cost growth near 16% for 2025/2026, straddling this year and the next — recorded here rather than as a competing reading because it does not resolve to a single survey year.\n"
    },
    {
      "date": "2026",
      "value": 16.1,
      "source": {
        "label": "WTW 2026 Global Medical Trends Survey (Philippines) — live re-confirmed 2026-05-27 (PH 16.1% / TH 10.8% / APAC 14%, up from 13.2% in 2025)",
        "url": "https://www.wtwco.com/en-in/insights/2025/12/asia-pacific-medical-inflation-continues-to-soar-in-2026"
      },
      "confidence": "sourced",
      "checked": "2026-05-27",
      "note": "WTW's Philippine projection for 2026 (16.1%) — among the highest medical- trend markets in Asia-Pacific. Down from the 2024/2025 readings but still a double-digit rate, ~2.6x the July-2026 local CPI (6.2%) and multiples of the ~2-3% a Western pension is indexed to.\n",
      "readings": [
        {
          "value": 16.1,
          "source": {
            "label": "WTW 2026 Global Medical Trends Survey (Philippines), live re-confirmed 2026-05-27",
            "url": "https://www.wtwco.com/en-in/insights/2025/12/asia-pacific-medical-inflation-continues-to-soar-in-2026"
          }
        },
        {
          "value": 16,
          "source": {
            "label": "A-Sure (a-sure.net) — cites Philippines ~16% medical inflation for 2026 (carried in the age-premium-table sidecar, ap5)"
          }
        },
        {
          "value": 16,
          "source": {
            "label": "Mercer Marsh Benefits — Philippine insurer survey (8 insurers), reported via BusinessWorld, put PH medical-cost growth near 16% for 2025/2026 (carried in the medical-inflation sidecar, c3 note)"
          }
        },
        {
          "value": 14,
          "source": {
            "label": "Philstar — reported a ~14% 2026 Philippine medical-inflation figure from a separate survey (carried in the medical-inflation sidecar, c3 note)"
          }
        }
      ],
      "rationale": "WTW's 16.1% is the resolved value because it is the consistent multi-year anchor across 2024/2025/2026, is country-specific rather than regional, and was re-confirmed live at the WTW survey page on 2026-05-27. The competing Philippine readings cluster around it — A-Sure (~16%) and the Mercer Marsh 8-insurer survey (~16%) corroborate; a separate survey reported via Philstar is the low outlier at ~14%. All are double-digit and all sit far above local CPI, so the band is tight and the direction is not in dispute. The Aon and Mercer APAC-level figures (11.3% / 12.5%) are regional, not Philippine, and are excluded rather than blended in.\n"
    }
  ],
  "corrections": []
}