What else can be done?
Instead of just looking at what the government or private sector players can do, we should also look towards lawmakers to better the industry.
According a report by the World Health Organisations ( WHO), the ‘ best buy’ or highly cost- effective interventions for NCDs that a nation can incorporate are tobacco and alcohol legislation, reduction of salt and sugar in foods, and encouragement of physical activity.
Our neighbour Singapore in particular is a good example of how these actions have helped them as their heavy taxes on tobacco and alcohol products in conjunction with their continuous initiatives to motivate citizens to be active has shown a vastly different scenario than the one seen in Malaysia.
Besides boasting a longer life span compared to the average Malaysian, data from Institute of Health Metric and Evaluation has also shown that the risk of Singaporeans dying or being disabled from dietary risks, tobacco usage, and high cholesterol has actually gone down when comparing figures form 2005 to 2016.
In comparison, Malaysians saw a 30.1 per cent increase in dietary risks, 26.6 per cent in tobacco and 33.3 per cent increase in high cholesterol.
Despite already being an ageing nation, Singapore only utilises 4.9 per cent of their GDP in healthcare expenditure, at 4.4 per cent, Malaysia is not too far behind.
While we’ve explored some of the many ways we can attempt to offset our total medical expenditure, Ramzi Toubassy, the vice- president of the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia reckoned that they may help improve the situation – but not solve it.
“The only way this is going to work is when all insurance companies and hospitals get together and work on a scheme to help the public. From our side, of course it is to our benefit to insure as many people as possible, but if medical expenditure continues to go up, it is not good for us either.
“So we will continue trying to find a way where hospitals can work with us together for the benefit of the public and not for the benefit of making profit, and as long as this is not happening, the situation will not improve much.”