FEBRUARY 3 — The proposal to introduce a Base Medical and Health Insurance/Takaful (MHIT) plan has sparked a flurry of commentary, with some that are critical.
On the surface, these criticisms appear to be pro-consumer, raising what appears to be fair concerns — at least at first glance.
But look a little closer and these arguments start to unravel.
With our future at stake, we really need to dig deeper. To look beyond the soundbites and headlines, and confront the root causes: the deeper cost structures driving rising hospital bills in Malaysia today.
Let’s break it down.
1. The focus Is on premiums and comparisons, not on hospital bills themselves
One of the loudest criticisms is that the Base MHIT plan isn’t as “good value” as existing private plans. Current products on the market, promising millions in annual coverage at similar or even lower premiums than the Base MHIT proposal.
At a glance, that sounds appealing.
But here’s what’s missing: no one is asking why private plans can offer such higher limits without us paying more when we actually get treated in hospitals.
Higher annual limits don’t automatically translate into better value for patients if the underlying hospital bills and pricing practices themselves are unchecked.
Products in the market today are also expected to see large premium hikes soon.
The MHIT debate shouldn’t be an apples-to-apples comparison of policy brochures. It has to tackle the meat of the issue: why private hospital bills continue to rise in the first place and why those rising costs keep pulling premiums up for everyone.
You have heard stories of hospitals over-charging patients if they are insured or have their bills covered by their employers.
But you won’t hear that much in these criticisms. Instead, there’s a lot of attention on product comparisons and how a government plan doesn’t look “competitive.”
2. The conversation treats premiums as the real problem — ignoring hospital pricing structures
Another claim is that the Base MHIT plan shifts costs to patients without fixing the real root drivers of medical inflation: opaque pricing, variation in billing, rising consumable costs, and weak regulation of private hospital bills.
That’s a sensible point in theory. But notice how the argument stops right there. There’s almost no pressure for:
* actual price transparency on what private hospitals charge for common treatments,
* reference pricing that caps how much can be billed for procedures,
* or strong regulatory tools to prevent runaway hospital bills.
In effect, this argument says “insurance premiums go up because of inflation; but let’s not upset the insiders who set those prices.”
That’s not a consumer-first frame. That’s a pricing neutrality frame that leaves private hospitals’ billing power untouched.
This debate often boils down to a single theme: the proposed insurance product isn’t a perfect deal. What gets lost is a much bigger question: why are healthcare costs going up for everyone in the first place, and whose interests benefit when costs keep rising?
The Base MHIT plan has features which try to curb the problems of over-charging and over-consumption, the buffet syndrome.
Critics also fail to point out that the base plan is part of the larger RESET framework, which promises more comprehensive reforms.
It’s not only about fixing insurance. It’s about enhancing price transparency, adopting digital systems, expanding cost effective options, transforming payments.
3. Arguments pivot to EPF savings — Deflecting from broader reform needs
There is also opposition to the idea of letting Malaysians use their Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) savings to pay for Base MHIT premiums, calling it a risky diversion of retirement funds.
At face value, that resonates emotionally. Most people don’t want to see their retirement nest egg drained.
But there’s a catch here: this debate is being used to shift the spotlight onto retirement versus insurance, rather than spotlighting the fundamental problem of unsustainable medical inflation and what structural reforms are needed.
The question should not stop at “Should we use retirement funds?” It should be: why are we even debating putting more money into a system that pays high hospital bills without corresponding reforms to cost drivers?
Yet much of the criticism doesn’t drive us toward those structural answers. Instead it flirts with headlines about retirement funds and affordability, while largely saying nothing about the heavy pricing engines behind private healthcare.
Critics also fail to acknowledge that it is common for provident funds all around the world to be used for medical and insurance purposes. EPF’s cousin in Singapore, the CPF, is a case in point.
4. Coverage caps get highlighted, but reality is more complex
Another criticism raised is that the Base MHIT’s RM100,000 annual limit probably won’t cover complicated and costly procedures like open-heart surgery.
That’s fair. For serious, high-cost procedures, RM100,000 might not be enough. But let’s be clear: pointing to a coverage limit without asking why the cost of that surgery has climbed so high in the first place is only half the story.
In the same breath, commenters compare that RM100,000 limit to private plans that offer RM1 million or more in limits.
But those higher limits don’t magically solve patients’ problems if hospital bills and pricing practices continually inflate.
It’s like trying to fix rising food prices by giving people bigger grocery coupons, without ever talking about why the prices went up.
So focusing the public’s attention on ceilings and copay levels, and then comparing them to big-limit private plans, frames the debate as a consumer choice problem instead of a systemic pricing problem.
5. Seniors and affordability: A narrow focus with a missing narrative
Some commentary rightly points out that for older adults, the Base MHIT premiums and deductibles may be hard to bear.
Seniors may not have the savings, and public facilities can have long waiting times for specialist care. But here again, the conversation stops short.
What should have been asked loudly and plainly is this: why has our health system structured itself so that ageing, which is not optional, saddles people with rising premiums and deductibles instead of fairness?
Instead, the narrative loops back to insurance product design and once again ignoring why prices have spiralled, why the private sector has bargaining power, and why regulation hasn’t kept up.
So where does the public fit into this debate?
Here’s what this pattern really shows.
When the bulk of commentary focuses on:
* comparing insurance products,
* debating whether premiums are “fair”,
* and highlighting that government proposals aren’t as good as private ones… it distracts from the much bigger problem: the underlying medical cost structure in Malaysia’s healthcare system.
You can shield consumers from paying more for insurance, but if the underlying bills keep rising unchecked, two things will happen:
* premiums will rise anyway,
-* and people will either be underinsured or pushed into out-of-pocket spending when they get sick.
That’s not protection. That’s buying time for the same pricing dynamics to continue.
A consumer-centred debate would insist on real price transparency in private hospitals, reference pricing, stronger oversight, and mechanisms to curtail extreme and unexplained differences in billing.
Instead, much of the commentary we see, even when it sounds critical, gravitates toward protecting existing private sector dynamics and treating consumer pain as a product design error rather than a systemic failure.
What Malaysians deserve to know
At the end of the day, this debate is not just about Base MHIT versus private plans. It’s about whether we prioritise:
* a system where costs are transparent and controlled, or
* a system where people with deeper pockets keep absorbing rising bills while everyone else is told to shop better.
The public deserves a debate that doesn’t sidestep the roots of rising costs and doesn’t let voices with vested interest frame the narrative in their favour.
If the goal is real health affordability and protection, the conversation needs to shift and to shift fast.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
