Savings plan to head health reform package
A Singapore-style personal medical savings account and encouragement of more private insurance will be the key health-care reforms proposed in the Government's consultation document to be released this afternoon, sources say.
However, in anticipation of public opposition and in light of Financial Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's freeze on medical charges, hospital fees will probably not be raised in the next five years.
The document will also propose to make the Department of Health a powerful regulatory body able to investigate complaints against all medical and health professionals, including private hospitals and nursing homes. Many of its out-patient clinics will be privatised, with a few dedicated to the training of Hospital Authority family medicine doctors.
It will also touch on the development of primary health-care, including the creation of community pharmacists and nurses, and family medicine clinics.
In the longer-term, a computerised information network will allow patients' health records to be shared between the public and private sectors.
The much-delayed consultation document comes 20 months after the release of the controversial Harvard Report, which called for two compulsory 'risk-sharing' medical schemes, under which all employees and employers would have to contribute a total of three per cent of their wages.
The present system relies on taxes to subsidise cheap services, which the Harvard Report says is unsustainable.
Without reform, public health-care expenditure would swallow 20 to 23 per cent of the total government budget within 18 years. It accounts for 14 per cent now and costs about $30 billion a year.
The document, which will be open for public consultation for three months, covers three main areas - financing, delivery of services and quality of services.
Secretary for Health and Welfare Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, who will present the green paper today, outlined the document, which he described as 'mainly a collection of ideas' to about 10 medical and health-care leaders on Sunday.
The savings fund, similar to Singapore's Medisave scheme, would be limited to workers aged 40 to 65, initially contributing one per cent of their monthly wage. The fund can only be withdrawn and used for medical expenses after the age of 65.
A source quoted Dr Yeoh as saying that an increase in public hospital and clinic charges would only be realistic in about five years. One source expressed disappointment that the paper would be thin on detail.
The existing daily charge for a public hospital bed is $68. Some health leaders have said increasing the fee to more than $500 would make sense to create a better balance between the public and private sectors.
They also feared the one per cent contribution would be too little. 'The fund will probably only be enough for patients to pay for services in public hospitals and may create an extra burden on the public hospitals,' one source said.
