Healthcare spending in Malaysia to jump 50-75% for the long term: report

This comes as the government aims to be aligned with the WHO’s recommended healthcare spending of 7% of GDP.

Healthcare expenditure in Malaysia could surge 50-75% as the sector in 2018 saw allocations increase to US$7.1b (RM29b), up 7.8% YoY, according to a report by UOB Kay Hian.

This is part Malaysian government’s goal to achieve its long term intention to be aligned with the World Health Organisation’s recommended healthcare spending of 7% of GDP. Healthcare now accounts for 10% of Budget Malaysia 2019.

The immediate areas of spending and visibility surrounds initiatives focused on providing a much needed safety net to the bottom 40% of the population. Under the mySalam scheme, it would qualify 3.7m recipients to receive equivalent treatment coverage to basic private health insurance schemes.

However, mySalam, could give a further surge to the public healthcare sector.

“We think there could be a possibility of an overspill of patients into the private healthcare system. It could boost patient volume growth that was already staging an organic recovery in 2018,” said Philip Wong, analyst at UOB Kay Hian.

Wong said that mySalam could also prompt some to switch to private hospitals.