Affordability a key point raised by MPs during debate on MediShield Life

Other issues include rising healthcare costs, support for asset-rich but cash-poor people

- Joyce Teo

The revised MediShield Life scheme will offer better protection, including care received entirely outside the premises of a medical institution, when the new recommendations kick in progressively from April 2025.

The amendments in the MediShield Life Scheme Bill were approved in Parliament on Nov 11, with seven MPs raising various points on issues such as the affordability of premiums, rising healthcare costs, and support for asset-rich but cash-poor individuals.

In mid-October, the MediShield Life Review Committee had recommended higher inpatient claim limits and enhanced outpatient coverage, as well as the coverage of clinically effective and cost-effective high-cost treatments such as cell, tissue and gene therapy products.

These recommendations come as healthcare delivery shifts towards outpatient, community and home-based care amid rising costs and an ageing population.

This means that premiums will inevitably rise, but they will be capped at 35 per cent, and progressively phased in evenly over three years from April 2025.

The Government has accepted the recommendations.

The higher claim limits, for instance, will allow the mandatory health insurance scheme to fully cover nine in 10 subsidised bills in public healthcare institutions as it was originally designed to do, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).