What is 'not too much more'? Over 1pc of your pay
Employees might be asked to contribute more than 1 per cent of wages to a medical savings plan.
Health minister York Chow Yat-ngok was asked about the possibility of a form of medical insurance a day after the South China Morning Post reported that Hong Kong's middle class will not have to pay 'too much more' under the health-care reform plan. The city might opt for a combination of medical savings and insurance.
The Health and Medical Advisory Committee, which Dr Chow chairs, will unveil a report on the future health-financing model in December or early next year. This would complete a two-part process after a discussion paper on a health-delivery model was unveiled last week for public consultation.
Dr Chow said the government remained open-minded, but had encouraged the community to make its preferences known on the health-care finance issue.
'There are no details at all. The 1 per cent is based on some overseas experience and, in reply, he [Dr Chow] personally believes it will be more than 1 per cent because personally he said 1 per cent would not be enough,' his spokesman said.
In a separate interview with the Post, Dr Chow said he would like to gauge the public pulse on how people consider different modes of financing.
He also defended the need to refocus the resources of the Hospital Authority on four areas of services - acute and emergency care, chronic illnesses, poor patients, and the training of doctors and nursing staff.
'The Hospital Authority only consists of about half of the medical manpower of Hong Kong and you cannot allow half of the doctors to do 95 per cent of all the most difficult work,' he said.
'When faced with a crisis like Sars, they are under a lot of pressure. And that is the reason why I think we should look at how to integrate the public and private sectors in different aspects,' Dr Chow said.
The reform document argues that 'the high occupancy rate of public hospitals leaves little flexibility to respond to changing needs of patients or emergency events such as outbreaks of infectious diseases'.
The authority was formed in 1990 under the Hospital Authority Ordinance, which gives it some flexibility in its management. As a corporation, one of its main aims also was to balance its budget, Dr Chow said.
'But the government will not shy away our responsibility in subventing the Hospital Authority. We would like to maintain a decent level of subvention - at the moment, it is almost $28 billion a year,' he said.
'I was in this system for 30-odd years,' said the orthopaedic surgeon who was formerly chief executive of Queen Elizabeth Hospital. 'I grew with this existing system. I understand why this system developed into this [present] form.'
