Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan has said that covering special needs children for treatment relating to congenital or pre-existing illnesses under Medishield is not a viable option, potentially resulting in excessive premiums paid by policyholders.
Mr Khaw said that it would be unusual for insurers to cover pre-existing illnesses or to cover treatment relating to congenital diseases, (as) to do so will be to load the burden on the rest of the policyholders who may not support a manyfold increase in premiums to take on this additional liability.’
He stressed that ‘if Medishield were to cover pre-existing illnesses, it will encourage potential policyholders to delay subscription until they are sick’.
This, he said, would ‘defeat the whole purpose of insurance, which is based on the sharing of burden, among policy holders with similar risk profiles’.
What’s the correlation between getting potential policyholders to delay subscription and covering new-born children who were born with congenital illness?
If newborn babies don’t get Medisave cover by the end of a reasonable period from birth (eg. 3 months from DOB), then they should be excluded should any congenital illnesses surface. BTW, weren’t all children to be covered by Medisave? Wouldn’t this be like pulling the blanket away from the baby who needs it most?
