AUGUST 6 — I wish to refer to the article on Putrajaya to implement health insurance gradually, deputy minister says.

Deputy Health Minister Lee Boon Chye was quoted: "The government needs to find a way to cover the B40 groups.”

He also mentioned that "we are thinking of minimum coverage of between RM10,000 and RM20,000 per family with annual premium of below RM1,000. That is something workable.”

I am very concerned about the proposal for the following reasons:

1) This scheme has not been discussed in detail with the stakeholders, namely the public, medical associations, the service providers, in particular doctors, pharmacists and allied healthcare personnel.

Any scheme that is planned and implemented without stakeholder consultation is going to be fraught with difficulties, gaps and may possibly fail resulting in tragic consequences.

2) The insurers, be it government linked entities or private entities, will need to be profitable lest the scheme fail and thus may translate to less care provided compared to the current levels.

3) If government and private hospitals are to charge normal rates under this scheme, taking current levels of charges at private hospitals, RM10,000 to rm20,000 per family per year would be totally inadequate if just one or two family members are admitted into hospitals even once in that year.

What happens when insurance coverage is exhausted and they have no more funds to purchase additional insurance? These are the B40 of which many are struggling to make ends meet every day.

4) The disease burden in the B40 is significant and massive and that includes non-communicable diseases which is increasing at stratospheric rates. Any insurance scheme to cover the B40 would need to be massive.

5) Finally, instead of insurance to treat diseases, would not it be far more economical & cost effective to start with insurance for health preventive and screening strategies and later on to enhance it to hospital treatments?

There are too many questions but no proper and clear answers and i hope that the Pakatan Government would not let history repeat itself with the previous proposal of I Care by the previous government that ended due to the opacity of the proposals.

* Dr John Teo is a Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist in Kota Kinabalu.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.