Govt Mulls Insurance Cover For High Risk Patients

Health Secretary Sophia Chan said the government hasn’t ruled out using public funds to subsidise high-risk patients to join its new voluntary health insurance scheme – though she concedes that this is unlikely to happen any time soon, as the public has to reach a consensus first.

Under the scheme, private insurance companies have to offer wider coverage than most plans available in the market – at an estimated 15 percent premium.

Policies are expected to cost HK$4,800 per year on average, and taxpayers are eligible for a tax break that officials think will come out to roughly HK$800 per policy.

However, insurers are free to reject applications – meaning they will likely deny coverage for people deemed to be high risk.

Part of the original proposal for the scheme included a ‘high-risk pool’ where public funds would be used to subsidise insurance companies to accept these types of patients. Chan said although the initial phase of the scheme – due to be launched next year – will not include this pool, that doesn’t mean it cannot be set up in future.

But she said the people will first have to make a choice.

“On the one hand, some people think it is a good thing that we should have the high-risk pool in our voluntary health insurance scheme”, Chan said, “but on the other hand, there are also critics that said the government should use its resources to strengthen our public healthcare system and not to subsidise the insurance companies or subsidise people who can afford to buy insurance”.

Chan added that a consensus on “whether high-risk pool is something that everybody wants in Hong Kong first, before we can go forward.”

The voluntary health insurance scheme is aimed at encourage middle-class people to go to private hospitals instead of relying on the public sector. Officials believe that one million people will sign up for the scheme within the first two years of operation.