SEPTEMBER 18 — My friends have been complaining about how their insurance premiums have tripled lately.
It’s not just affecting senior citizens, but people I would call young — in their early 30s.
Other friends complain that insurers reject them for any pre-existing conditions, something that Obamacare tried to get rid off to middling success in the US.
It got me thinking about health insurance when I got myself into a terrible health spot.
Yesterday I had an IBS attack that was so bad I couldn’t move.
Lying down on my side, I was somewhat paralysed, not even able to roll over and all I could do was take deep breaths.
I was also running a fever while feeling super bloated but there was no one I could call when I couldn’t speak; no one I could text when I couldn’t reach my phone.
Eventually my body got too exhausted to fight the pain and I fell asleep.
I woke up two hours later with my fever as well as my cramps gone.
It makes me think of a book I read as a child, The Body Has Its Reasons, that argued that a lot of the things we call exercise harmed the body more than helped and that we needed to get our body fit to do sports instead of doing it the other way around.
What was my body telling me?
Perhaps it decided I needed rest and to keep me from hindering its attempts to right itself.
I am still a little poorly as I write this, nauseous to the point the mere thought of food makes me feel ill but it seems my body is tolerant of Boost Juice’s Watermelon crush (this is not a paid advertisement) and after I finish writing, I’ll finish my juice, take an ibuprofen and get ready for bed.
If I had gotten myself to a doctor, where would I go? All the clinics near me were closed so my only option was the 24-hour clinic in Damansara Utama.
Then I thought of the people for whom those clinics would be far too expensive and a public hospital would be their only recourse.
It makes me a little angry thinking about how private health insurance is now unaffordable; I myself don’t bother with it anymore as I live a fairly low-risk life (no alcohol/smoking/recreational drugs) though I’ve taken up roller skating and skateboarding which is both terrifying and risky at my age.
If we can add Socso to private worker deductions, why can’t we tack on a small premium for EPF deductions?
For lower-income communities, we could just make it a single low payment (RM20 or less).
You might not think that’s a lot but at least those bleating about the low public hospital registration fees might stop bleating for a bit.
We also need to properly regulate private healthcare and put ceilings on charges; if dentists can be made to follow pricing guidelines, why can’t other private practitioners?
There is nothing rational about private insurers making obscene amounts of profit while the average Malaysian stresses about medical fees.
I stopped doing anything damaging to my liver and lungs because I don’t want to need a transplant while also working on my heart and Covid-damaged respiratory system.
My motivation is simply that I hate hospitals and I would rather not spend obscene money on keeping myself alive when I have many other questionable ways to spend it that are far more enjoyable.
At the end of the day it’s going to be a matter of luck. My running hero Grete Waitz lived a ridiculously healthy life and still died of cancer in her 50s.
Insurance is supposed to be that buffer between you and luck but we need to prioritise people over profit or at least spend money on preventative healthcare instead of the “Malaysians are so fat!” and “Malaysian food is so unhealthy” articles that come out at least twice a year.
Dear media outlets: the world is full of stories. Find different ones.
What I hope to see in a headline in a year or two is a standardised list of charges and no surprise in hospital bills — no, Hospital X, you do not get to charge me for sitting in your emergency department.
Feel free to charge the rich a ridiculous amount of money for fancy laser treatments or hair plugs.
The rest of us? We’d just like to stay alive, please.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
