Anwar Ibrahim suggests removing health care subsidies from the rich to impose higher charges on them in public health care facilities. The PM also wants sugar subsidies scrapped to reduce diabetes cases, saying the savings can fund diabetes treatment.
Means-testing on healthcare subsidies is such a regressive idea, not to mention scapegoating rich people for accessing public healthcare in our current healthcare system is close to lying considering:
most middle class and above tend to be funnelled into using private healthcare anyway, especially with the way the facilities are all counted as equivalent (per the bancian data) ie a location is considered well-covered even if most of it is private (hospitals/GP clinics/pharmacies), so who exactly is “using” public healthcare even tho rich? Hmmm, let’s check on what benefits public servants above certain grades and parliamentarians can access in a public hospital
the medication shortage is currently being normatively papered over by accessing private health stocks, which themselves are also capped in price. Who exactly is the rich here, if an uncle is being persuaded to access the nearby private hospital by the klinik kesihatan doctor because the kk doesn’t have the appropriate heart medication?
A 33mil population is not a small market. Plus if ASEAN could get their act together and negotiate en bloc the way the EU does, you can go a long way in negotiating for more competitive pricing. The one good thing from the Trans Pacific Partnership being blown up by Trump to me in this matter was the fact that US Big Pharma-negotiated clauses with regards to market access got blown up too.
Anwar’s populism only sounds nice but it would eventually doom poor people and the working class most of all. Where’s the taxation reform? The budgeting reallocation? Why is the conversation not at all considering increasing investment in our healthcare system? We’re not poor (yet).