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Following is a question by the Hon Frederick Fung and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (October 22):
Question:
The first stage of public consultation on healthcare reform ended in mid-June this year. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) when the public consultation results are expected to be made public, and of the preliminary summary of public views;
(b) of the preliminary details of the second stage of public consultation and the relevant funding proposals; and
(c) as it has been reported that the recent turmoil in the financial market has exposed loopholes in its monitoring and risk management mechanism, which allows high-risk investment products to be presented and sold as low-risk products, resulting in huge losses by investors and a sudden collapse of public confidence in the investment market, as well as dealing a blow to the investment and insurance markets, and given that certain healthcare funding options proposed by the Government in the consultation document of the first stage public consultation require members of the public to make contributions for investment and to take out health insurance, whether the Government will review, in the light of the above, if such healthcare funding options should be included in the second stage of public consultation on healthcare reform; if it will not, of the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
(a) & (b) The Government published the Healthcare Reform Consultation Document entitled "Your Health, Your Life" early this year to launch the first-stage public consultation on healthcare reform and financing. During the consultation period, various sectors in the community and the general public actively put forward their views to the Government.
Overall, there is a broad consensus in the community about implementing the healthcare reform without delay so as to enhance the quality of healthcare services and ensure the sustainable development of the healthcare system. The public and the stakeholders generally agree with the various proposals put forward by the Government on service and market structure reforms, including enhancing primary care, promoting public-private partnership, developing electronic health record sharing and strengthening the public healthcare safety net. Many are also of the view that the Government should expedite and put in more effort in the implementation of such service reforms. As pledged by the Chief Executive in the Policy Address, we are committed to making the best use of the increased Government funding over the next few years to implement those service reforms for which there is clear public support before finalising the healthcare financing arrangements.
On healthcare financing, we understand that there are diverse views in the community. There are views subscribing to the need to address the issue and supporting the Government to work out solutions before the problem gets out of hand. The community is generally supportive of the Government's pledge to increase its commitment to healthcare financing by increasing its expenditure on healthcare from 15% to 17% of the total recurrent expenditure and earmarking $50 billion from the fiscal reserve for the healthcare reform. However, no mainstream consensus has yet been reached in the community on the introduction of supplementary financing and the option to be adopted. Members of the public and different sectors have put forward insightful views on a number of important issues, including the future development of healthcare services and sustainability of healthcare financing, the Government's commitment to public healthcare and funding capability of public finance, overall medical protection for and affordability of our citizens, freedom of choice of individuals and their responsibility for their own health, etc.
We are now collating the public's views on these issues and conducting an in-depth analysis. We will formulate more concrete proposals on service reforms and supplementary financing that can strike a balance between different social values. We aim to conduct the second-stage public consultation in the first half of 2009 to encourage further discussion and seek to forge a consensus. At the present stage, the Government does not have any determined proposal for the second-stage public consultation.
(c) Healthcare financing arrangements are related to the long-term development and sustainability of our healthcare system. In the first-stage consultation on healthcare reform, the Government kept an open mind on the various supplementary healthcare financing options and collected public views on their pros and cons. In formulating proposals on supplementary healthcare financing options for the second-stage consultation, we will take full account of the circumstances of the society and different views of various sectors in order to further forge a consensus in the community.
Ends/Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:47
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