Tuesday, February 3, 2009

My (narrow-minded & immature) POV on Health Insurance

Thanks to deepo's post, which gives me inspiration to write my post. ;) I just copy my comment there and paste it here. ;) Please read her post to make sense of my post. :)

1. I wonder where "health tourism" fits... ;)
2. In health tourism (HT), you don't need to have health insurance (HI).
3. But if you have one, it'll certainly make your life 'easier'.
4. Of course, HT is only for the richer locals (because usually only private practices provide these) or the poorer tourists (because it costs more in their country).
5. And of course, there are quality HT too. So richer tourist (and locals too) still come here despite the higher cost than their country's...
6. I didn't mean HT as masseurs, health spas, cosmetic surgeries etc. I mean big ones e.g. cardiosurgery, neurosurgery, cancer treatment, organs transplantation etc...
7. My point is there are needs for private health providers, and HI at that (if implemented properly, transparently and doesn't discriminate anyone!).
8. Why? First of all, it's not cheap to train health care people or to setup quality health care (HC) facilities. Secondly, it's hard to keep trained HC people to stay and work on 'non-profit' basis (from capitalist's POV)...
9. It's sad to see many, for examples: doctors and nurses, go over to the private sector because the government 'couldn't provide' enough (salary, benefit?) for them...
10. Yes, blame it on the capitalism but we live (or rather, hide) in the shadows of big time capitalist! BTW, this is only my opinion. ;)
11. And yes! The government may have enough resource to provide free HC for all but they appear to be reluctant to do so (some 'weightier' problems in mind perhaps) ;) So, the next best thing is to take certain percentage from the taxes that the government receives and transformed to become HI, to provide free or partial help to those costly 'rare' treatment/HC...
12. The government has already spent millions in elderly (warga emas) HC (among other). Certainly the rakyat, the ones who can afford at least, can help others by 'investing' in HI, thus relieving some of, er, 'weightier' problems off their minds. :)
13. As Pok Leh has surmised, undoubtedly disgusted and disappointed: "This (the once attempted INSURANS KESIHATAN MALAYSIA) is a business oriented. Makes money while other suffers... It's a crap. Holy feacal matter (the italic part was edited by me ;))" I concur with him, to some extend...
14. I like deepo's respond "if they really want to implement this insurance... middle class income and poor people should get free treatment".
15. I would like to, however, add:
=> All able to do/pay people should invest in HI. The poor/hard to do people are exempted from paying.
=> All Malaysians should get the same benefit (not only the poor/middle class), meaning all 'economically-challenged' people/families will get free HC, sustained by the HI and government allocations.
=> On top of the health benefits, the investors also get some other insurance investment benefits: e.g. premiums albeit perhaps lowest of all insurance; tax exemption etc.
=> The government should protect HI like they protect BSN.
16. I have to stop typing! ;) I have wasted pages for my rubbish opinion! :p Cheers ;)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha.....HT? emm....actually msians are very business-minded.....haha...

KY Chua said...

Doesn't anyone? ;)