Debated in Parliament on 14 Oct 2025.
Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health in light of the Minister's recent remarks on unsustainable private insurance practices (a) what safeguards are being introduced to prevent spill-over effects from such practices into public hospital charges; and (b) how is the Ministry working with insurers to keep premiums affordable while ensuring sufficient coverage.
Public sector care is guided by clinical protocols and value-driven programmes to ensure discipline and prudence. Efforts such as Health Technology Assessments to subsidise only clinically- and cost-effective health technologies and right-siting care from hospitals to the community play major roles in keeping healthcare costs sustainable, which in turn ensure that premiums for MediShield Life remain affordable.
The overly generous coverage of Integrated Shield Plans and Riders are a key distortion to healthcare costs today. They are designed for private healthcare and therefore do not have a significant spillover effect to public healthcare. However, they can indirectly affect public healthcare. If private healthcare becomes too expensive, patients that would have been able to afford private healthcare may instead seek public healthcare, adding to the already heavy workload.
We need to manage the cost escalation of private healthcare, which in turn drives increases in private healthcare insurance premiums. As the Ministry of Health has explained in the oral reply in response to Parliamentary Question Nos 1 to 4 for the Sitting on 24 September 2025, managing private healthcare costs and insurance premiums will require efforts from all stakeholders including doctors, hospitals, insurers and policyholders to unravel the current situation. [Please refer to "Reviewing Regulatory Framework for Integrated Shield Plans and Assessing Practice of Pre-authorisation", Official Report, 24 September 2025, Vol 96, Issue 4, Oral Answers to Questions section.]
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