This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on August 14, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has been urged to review the proposal to roll out the healthcare insurance scheme that caters to the bottom 40% (B40) of households, describing it as not sustainable.

It also contains “built-in forces” that will escalate the healthcare cost, which is increasing at an annual rate of 10%, according to the Citizens’ Health Initiative (CHI) think tank.

“Our concern is that the proposal to introduce voluntary health insurance and then move to social health insurance is problematic. Basically, an insurance-based healthcare system has built-in forces to escalate the healthcare cost,” CHI representative and former president of the Malaysian Medical Association Dr Mary Suma Cardosa told reporters after a 30-minute meeting with the five-member Council of Eminent Persons at Menara lham yesterday.

Earlier, Cardosa expressed CHI’s concern over the government’s latest attempt to implement a healthcare insurance scheme for the B40, which is at a finalisation stage and will be tabled in the October parliament sitting.

The proposal to roll out the insurance scheme was mooted by former director-general of health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican, with the aim of reducing the gap in healthcare services between the government and the private sector.

Cardosa said that in CHI’s view, the government’s plan to implement the health insurance scheme does not address the imbalance between the public and the private healthcare services.

“There is a need to redress the imbalance in the healthcare systems such as the ratio of patient workload to personnel and the healthcare expenditure for the amount of output,” she added.

Instead of rolling out the proposed insurance scheme, Cardosa said the government should improve the current healthcare system, which is tax-based and efficient in controlling the healthcare cost.

“With the tax-based system, as opposed to the insurance scheme, the government will have the means to control the healthcare cost,” she added.