National health insurance study ready within 18 months

The EdgeDaily A study on a proposed national healthcare insurance scheme would be ready within 12 months to 18 months, the parliamentary secretary to the Health Ministry, Datuk Lee Kah Choon said.
The study was undertaken by an Australian company and a local consultant, he said on July 27.
"We (the ministry) need to look at it from a few angles, the mechanism, positive and negative aspects of a national health insurance,” Lee said.
He said a new statutory body would be set up to regulate this scheme, if it was implemented. As heath care costs were rising, he said the financing for any national insurance should be sustainable.
Lee was speaking after launching the General Insurance Association of Malaysia's (PIAM) three-month "Healthy Living" campaign in Kuala Lumpur.
He said a new national insurance premium payment would be community rated, making it cheaper compared with current private health care insurance where its risks were individually adjusted.
PIAM chairman Hashim Harun said government healthcare cost increased from RM1 billion in 1983 to RM6.3 billion in 2003 and was forecast to exceed RM10 billion by 2010.
He expected the medical and health insurance sector to expand at a significant rate underpinned by consumers' increasing demand for private healthcare isurance to finance their healthcare expenses.
"Gross premiums registered by the medical and health insurance sector in the first quarter of 2006 reached RM114 million, up 15% from the corresponding period in 2005," he said.