MediShield Life more sustainable than private medical schemes: Gan

SINGAPORE — Some private medical care schemes may “appear to be better” than the revamped MediShield Life announced recently but these schemes “may not be sustainable over the long term”, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said yesterday.

He cited how some schemes that cover an employee’s spouse will cease when the worker passes away, as he tackled a question during a dialogue about how MediShield Life will apply to pensioners, who are already on a free or co-payment medical scheme.

In the past, some civil servants enjoyed a pension scheme which included free medical care for themselves and their spouses. In the 1970s, they were given an option to switch to the Central Provident Fund scheme.

“We are quite aware that there are some schemes which are very historical schemes, inherited in the past, so I think some of these schemes are the details we would need to go through, as we work out the features of this MediShield Life,” said Mr Gan.

Pensioner Lee Lan Yong, who was one of the participants of yesterday’s dialogue organised by the Health Ministry and government feedback portal REACH, wondered if people like her should be made to come under the MediShield Life scheme. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had announced that the scheme will, in time, be changed to be compulsory for all Singaporeans.

“As a pensioner, I think I need not take MediShield Life, in the sense that 85 per cent of my (medical) bill is already covered by the government.”

Speaking to reporters after the dialogue, Mr Gan said his ministry is also looking into the numbers of those who are under MediShield but are suffering from conditions which are presently excluded from coverage, so as to determine the impact on premiums of the revamped scheme.

These include “mental health conditions, congenital conditions, pre-natal conditions”.

Earlier, a participant had noted that her brother, who suffers from dementia, cannot tap on his MediShield although coverage was extended to mental illness in March because he was diagnosed before that.

Mr Gan gave the assurance that these groups of people will be covered under MediShield Life, but refused to be drawn into saying how much it would impact premiums.

The question of how much premiums will be adjusted as a result of MediShield becoming a universal and for-life scheme has been widely debated.

A public healthcare worker participating in the dialogue suggested that tightening operational efficiency in hospitals was one way to reduce costs and, in turn, avoid higher MediShield premiums.

Wanting to be known only as Jessica, she claimed that a substantial part of healthcare costs resulted from unnecessary tests being ordered by inexperienced doctors.

She suggested that more could be done to train them, or to retain experienced doctors— many leave for the private sector, according to her observation — so that the public sector is not perennially filled with junior doctors.