Medical Insurance for Gig Economy Workers

Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for Manpower what plans are in place to help gig economy workers access group medical insurance as well as save for retirement and home ownership.

Mr Speaker, over the past decade, the share of persons who were engaged in self-employment as their main source of income has remained stable at 8% to 10% of our resident workforce.

In 2017, the Government set up a Tripartite Workgroup on self-employed persons (SEPs). Since March 2018, we have been implementing the Workgroup's recommendations to address SEPs' challenges.

Today, all SEPs are already covered under MediShield Life against large hospital bills. SEPs' concerns were more about their loss of income when they fall sick for prolonged periods. To mitigate this, we worked with insurers to make available Prolonged Medical Leave (PML) insurance products. Today, major intermediaries, like Grab and Gojek, provide PML insurance coverage at no additional cost to their regular drivers. The National Instructors and Coaches Association also offers discounted PML insurance for their members. We encourage more service-buyers and associations to support their SEPs with such insurance coverage.

In addition, Government agencies have taken the lead to implement the "Contribute-as-you-Earn" (CAYE) pilot, where SEPs contribute to their MediSave accounts as they receive payment for their services. Like regular employees, SEPs can save for home ownership and retirement through the CPF system. They can do so by making voluntary CPF contributions and benefit from the higher-than-market interest rates.

Lower income SEPs receive additional support through the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme. WIS encourages lower income workers to stay employed and strengthen their retirement adequacy. Each year, more than 40,000 SEPs receive WIS. We have recently enhanced WIS for SEPs by increasing the qualifying income ceiling from $2,000 to $2,300, and the maximum annual payouts from $2,400 to $2,667.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for the explanation of how the Government is trying to help SEPs with their medical needs. I wonder if the Ministry will consider studying a Government-led mandatory medical benefit system for the self-employed that will cover things like paid medical leave as well as co-payments for outpatient care. That is because it might be more efficient than relying on private provision of these systems because there are issues with adverse selection and also gaps in coverage outside the sectors that the Ministry has worked on.

Mr Speaker, there are really three parts to this. The first is that, if you look at our MediShield Life system, it already covers everyone, including the SEPs. So, there is one layer of protection that an SEP will already have.

The second is that, we are very mindful that in some instances, what is considered a self-employment arrangement may, in fact, be a mis-classification. Then, in those instances, the right thing to do is to rectify or regularise that arrangement so that the employer rightly provides for the individual in terms of medical benefits.

The third is really people whose nature of work involves them contracting with multiple service buyers. Under those circumstances, if we were to say that each one of those service buyers would be responsible for some part of the medical provision, I think there are complications in terms of implementation. I accept the fact that, indeed, on a system basis, it may be more efficient to get the individual covered but that is really the whole purpose MediShield Life to begin with.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for quite a number of measures that seem to be in place. I think the most fundamental worry that we all have with SEPs is their savings for retirement and, to a large extent, also towards housing. So, would the Minister consider launching a matched retirement savings scheme, a scheme where perhaps the Government can contribute when they put some money in to save towards housing needs and also their retirement?

The short answer is, yes. All good things will be considered.