SCMP, March 11, 2001: The arrival of young mainland migrants would help the Government ease the growing burden of medical spending created by an ageing population, a statistician believes. Dr Yip Siu-fai, senior lecturer at the University of Hong Kong's department of statistics and actuarial science, estimated the Government could recover 13.6 per cent of its spending when people contributed one to two per cent of their salaries with the proposed medical savings plan. Under the scheme, each person would get about $42,000 on retirement. But Dr Yip estimated an elderly person would eat up more than $300,000 in medical costs if they lived to the average life expectancy of 83 - which means the Government would have to subsidise nearly 86 per cent. The Government currently subsidises about 98 per cent of costs in public hospitals. Dr Yip warned that the Government faced a hefty financial burden if there were not enough young people to pay taxes to finance medical spending. Speaking at a conference on health-care reform yesterday, he said more Hong Kong women chose to marry and give birth late, or remain single. This had created the world's lowest fertility rate, which stood at 0.975 in 1999. The figure refers to the average number of children born to each woman during her lifetime. He predicted that on current trends about two working people would be supporting one elderly person by 2029. But this ratio could be improved to about three to one with the influx of new migrants. 'If more young new migrants, including young mothers and their children, settle here now, our community will have more young working people to make a financial contribution,' Dr Yip said. 'Also, elderly people can stay healthier if they have young family members to take care of them - saving medical spending.' The Secretary for Health and Welfare, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, has said the Government can no longer allow the unlimited expansion of medical spending, although he has guaranteed that the quality of service will not be compromised. The health chief also said public doctors would be issued with clinical guidelines for diagnosis and choosing treatment to avoid unnecessary costs. Glossary burden (n) something that is difficult to bear retirement (n) the period after giving up work, usually because of age hefty (adj) heavy and large predict (v) to forecast influx (n) the arrival of people or things in large numbers diagnosis (n) the identification of a disease after studying the symptoms Discussion points Do you think the Government should rely on mainlanders to help subsidise the ageing population? Is it fair to place the financial responsibility of caring for the elderly on young people? Give your reasons. Edited by Catherine Chisholm
