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Health costs still low

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Why you can trust SCMP

SCMP, November 6, 2002

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The problem of financing Hong Kong's escalating costs of public medical services remains fundamentally unresolved despite seemingly staggering rises in hospital fees and charges.

In terms of absolute amount, raising the in-patient service charge from $68 to $100 a day, a 47 per cent rise, is by no means excessive. The same can be said of the $60 fee, a 36 per cent rise from $44, for consulting a specialist at a public clinic. Seeing a general practitioner at an out-patient clinic for $45, a 22 per cent hike from $37, remains a bargain.

Nor can the decision to charge $100 for treatment at the accident and emergency department, whose service has been free, be considered unreasonable. The fee will not even remotely reflect the full costs of providing the service, which is not free in most other countries, even in places where people pay a lot more in taxes and medical levies.

Overall, after the new fees and charges become effective, the services will remain 96 per cent funded by the government, just one percentage point less than the existing level.

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Officials are considering introducing a fee schedule based on affordability. This is the right way forward, provided that a suitable assistance programme is put in place to exempt the poor and the chronically ill.

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