Tan: Why 1Care when we spend below WHO level?

The government's mandatory healthcare insurance proposal, 1Care, already under fire over some its secreted details, came in for more criticism after being compared with international benchmarks.

PKR's putative spokesperson for healthcare, Dr Tan Kee Kwong, today drew attention to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended level of spending on healthcare in a country's GDP, saying the government spending on the sector lagged behind the world body's stipulation.

"The WHO recommendation is that member countries should spend 5% of GDP on healthcare," said Tan, who is trained doctor and as a Gerakan MP was deputy minister in the BN government before joining PKR in 2008.

"Right now, the government is spending only 2% of GDP on healthcare, which is way short of the WHO recommended level," he contended.

"I don't see why the government cannot raise the level of spending to 5% of GDP. All it has to do is save money from being splurged on unnecessary items like submarines and armoured carriers for reallocation to priority items like healthcare," asserted Tan.

He said the existing healthcare system in Malaysia, which is a combination of public and private sector care, only needs "some tinkering" before an optimum level is arrived at.

"More privatisation is not the way to go. The government should take as cautionary wisdom the experience of its privatisation of clinical waste," said Tan.

Proposed scheme 'highly unpopular'

He noted that the company to whom the disposal of clinical waste was privatised some years back now charges three times the cost incurred when the government was responsible for the disposal.

"That experience ought to be sufficiently cautionary on the part of the government in that privatisation is not the panacea for whatever ails our system of healthcare," argued Tan.

He claimed sources in the government had told him the Health Ministry's proposed new scheme was widely unpopular among its professionals, but a few influential individuals, going against grain, were plumbing for it.

"Hence the suspicion arises that these influential individuals are pushing the scheme to benefit cronies in the private sector who are angling for juicy bits of the project," surmised Tan.


‘From the looks of it, the entire scheme smacks of bad policy and poor economics," commented Tan.