It's an undeniable fact that Hong Kong has an ageing population. In order to ease the increasing financial burden on public health care and address the long-term imbalance between private and public health care providers, the government has proposed a voluntary medical insurance scheme.
It is hoped that the latest health care reform can encourage those who are financially capable to sign up for private health insurance. The scheme is undoubtedly well-intended, but the problem is that we have talked about overhauling our medical system for more than 10 years with little result.
In 1999, we had the Harvard Report for radical structural reform, and then, in 2005, the discussion paper from the Health and Medical Development Advisory Committee on the future service delivery model for Hong Kong's health care system, with a suggestion to cap public health care financing.
Judging from the proposed health care financing reform in 2008 to today's voluntary medical insurance scheme, it's obvious that the line of thinking of Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok is to privatise health services. He seems to believe that the government can offload a big chunk of the responsibility to the private sector.
The provision of medical services is one of the fundamental welfare services for our citizens. Hong Kong prides itself on its first-class and affordable health care. Our health care expenditure is estimated at about 5 per cent of gross domestic product, far lower than the average 8.1 per cent of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries.
If a system has worked well for so many years, there is no reason to change it. And if there is any decision to do so, it shouldn't be taken lightly.
In the long term, we need to address the fundamental issue of health care financing. Key to any revamp is the structural relationship between the public and private sector - and the allocation of medical resources.