Ordinary Rakyat
1Care: 'Once privatised, we'll be made to pay'
Various comments on Malaysiakini about 1Care
1Care shaping up as gravy train for sharks
Jackson Ng, in Malaysiakini Feb 8, 2012
Engage public in changes to health care system
This is a letter to Malaysiakini by G.Thomas dated December 14, 2011
"Corporatisation of government hospitals will mean patients pay more for less, if the service qualities and financial performances of Telekom Malaysia and Tenaga Nasional in comparison with their respective predecessors are anything to by. Instead, the Health Ministry should cut wastage. Do not build hospitals that cannot operate. Do not be too generous in the dispensation of medicines, etc."
为什么我们要拒绝“1Care健保計劃”?
From the facebook page: 我们要改变 We want to change
"人民繳的費用還不夠嗎?繳了公積金,繳了所得稅,還有遲早也要實行的消費稅,再來這個健保計劃,我不知人民還剩下多少收入可以過活。"
Why I think 1Care will not work
This is an excellent analysis posted by Peter Terence D'Cruz on the #taknak1care facebook page on 7 Feb 2012
"...in the first paragraph of the Country Health Plan: 10th Malaysia Plan 2011-2015 states that ‘Malaysians are more healthy, have a longer life expectancy and productive. The level of overall health achieved is an indication of the success of the country’. Great! Now can someone tell me what is broken that needs a major system replacement?"
Feedback: 2015 – Asean economic zone
This is a comment left on a medical professionals networking site called medicine.com.my
"One of the possible reasons the 1Care system is to be ‘rushed’ in the next 3 years is because by 2015, ASEAN will be a combined economic zone like Euro. What this means is that foreign corporations can invest in the country in healthcare."
Medical professionals
A critical look at the proposed National Health Financial Scheme
This is a good analysis of Malaysia's healthcare needs. Of course, his recommendation don't make much money for people and thus completely ignored. Excerpt:
"Since our present system is good value for money, it should not be abandon at this moment to be replaced by a new scheme which is totally not tested and which will very likely result in an increase in healthcare cost.
Thus we recommend an upgrading of the present system with increased spending on the part of the government to strengthen the public healthcare services and improve the efficiency and image of the public hospitals."
Referendum badly needed on 1M'sia health plan
Drs Steven Chow & Ng Swee Choon
Malaysiakini, May 10, 2011
When this plan was revealed three years ago, the FPMPAM had cautioned that introducing a national health insurance, will not necessarily improve patient care and lower cost of delivery. In fact, our contention is that it may disrupt the continuity of present patient care in the country. Our proposal is instead of a transformation is to allow the system to evolve, paying particular attention to areas of weaknesses, which cause the under-performance and poor delivery in the existing system.
FPMPAM: From The President: Malaysian Healthcare - The Way Ahead!!
From The President: of the Federation of Private Medical Associations Malaysia
"At the end of the day, how much will all this 1-Care cost us and the future generation of Malaysians? We envisage the 1-Care will cost the patients and the rakyat more and not less than what they are paying for now."
Seeking a better healthcare system
An interesting article in Malaysian Insider by Dr. TK Khong, touching on the 1Care system the Government plans to implement.
1Care outpatient scheme - middlemen didahulukan?
This is a joint letter by Dr Ong Hean Teik and Dr Haji Haniffah b Haji Abdul Gafoor, former presidents of PMPS (Penang Medical Practitioners’ Society), and Dr SP Palaniappan, former chairman of MMA (Penang branch). All of them express concern about how the government is determined to implement 1Care without thought about the rakyat.
"In no other country in the world has the government started a financing scheme for outpatient clinics before dealing with the more expensive and more important problem of hospitalisation cost."
Letter to the Editor, STAR 3rd Dec 2011.
From Dr Ng Swee Choon, Federation of Private Medical Practitioner’s Association of Malaysia (FPMPAM) , Medical Affairs Committee
"Better healthcare delivery, at no greater expense to the “rakyat”, can be achieved. Healthcare is the responsibility of the government and should not be privatized. It is also an inalienable human right. It is not a privilege."
With 1 Care, the choice will not be there
A letter to Malaysiakini by Dr. Steven Chow, President of the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations Malaysia
"At the end of the day one would create a huge profit-driven monster that will be impossible to control as the regulator (i.e. the government) will also be an operator of the industry via its GLCs."
Merging healthcare sectors a wrong move?
A letter to the Star by Dr. KH Sng
"Why introduce an unknown, untested and possibly unworkable system of healthcare for everyone? The private sector is already in an excellent state, with various centres fulfilling Quality Care ISO 9000 and JCI standards. The subscribers are happy, and the providers are happy, and healthcare financiers, too, are flourishing. It must therefore be the government sector that needs to be revamped, improved and revitalised, rather than merging the two into one."
1Care: Prioritise, not privatise patient care
Letter to Malaysiakini by Dr. Ng Swee Choon
"The 1-Care concept paper has already allocated 5% of the expected total healthcare cost of RM 44.24 billion as administrative cost. This comes up to a whooping RM2.2 billion each year on administrative costs alone. As doctors we believe that this money should be better spent directly for patient care."
NGOs
1Care: What ails Malaysia’s health care system?
By Aliran, on 3 February 2012
"In effect, 1Care will provide massive public subsidies for private hospitals. An analogy would be the use of public funds given out as PTPTN study loans, which effectively acts as a huge government subsidy to private colleges, which have mushroomed. The cost is borne by indebted ordinary students, who have to make long-term study loan repayments. In the same way, payments out of the national health care authority’s funds (raised from the public via taxes and monthly public contributions) will serve as large subsidies to boost admissions, the occupancy and the bottom line of private hospitals and GLC-owned ‘private’ hospitals. Even government hospitals could end up behaving like private hospitals."
Business People
Updates on Malaysia's Medical Markets
This is an evaluation of Malaysia's healthcare system by a lobbyist group. If professional lobbyists are looking at something, you can be sure that there's lots of money to be made from the policies they are promoting!
“The government's Seventh Malaysian Plan (1996 - 2000), for example, plans to initiate healthcare reform and cost-cutting through corporatization - gradually running state hospitals like companies...however, medical costs are still likely to escalate. ...the government is also planning to implement a new National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme after corporatization is in full swing. Contribution to the NHI scheme will be required for all workers who will then pay for public healthcare, which is currently provided free of charge or at minimal prices at government hospitals.”
Academics
Privatisation, the State and Healthcare Reforms: Global Influences & Local Contingencies in Malaysia
"the reality and fact of the matter is that, stripped of its rhetoric and official rationales, healthcare privatisation in Malaysia is largely driven by politically well-connected corporate entities, in collaboration with their foreign partners who see vast business opportunities opening up with the further retrenchment of the state. It has little to do with burdensome public expenditures, cost efficiency, client responsiveness or greater consumer satisfaction."