Materia Medica Malaysiana

New Healthcare Financing Model Not An Insurance Scheme, Says Dr Chua

KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Bernama) -- The proposed National Health Financing scheme which is likely to be introduced next year is not an insurance scheme, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said Friday.
The government will give an undertaking that the National Health Financing scheme is not a privatised project and it is not an insurance scheme where we will ask the rakyat to buy insurance. No," he told reporters after opening the Ninth Annual National Heart Association Scientific Meeting here.
"It is a community-rated scheme where those who can afford have to pay to help those who cannot.
"Those who are working help those who are not working and the government will continue to fulfil its obligation to offer medical treatment to the unemployed, handicapped, the underprivileged and all civil servants," he said.
He said the scheme was in its final stages and consultants were working out a proper mechanisim on the quantum to be charged by hospitals on patients.