(First published July 2, 2025)

JULY 2 — There are things that irk me about Malaysia sometimes but I’m grateful our public healthcare exists.

If it hadn’t, faced with charges like RM4,000 for a biopsy and nearly RM3,000 for a PET scan, the alternate choice of flying somewhere with snow and dying from exposure on a wintery mountainside would seem far more appealing.

Remembering the anguish I felt seeing just how much scans and cancer drugs cost when I started my cancer journey, I do not wish it on anyone else.

Public healthcare and the generosity of friends and supporters is literally saving my life so why wouldn’t I want that same healthcare available for everyone?

Instead some guy in a suit is telling me no, we need to make everyone buy insurance and go to private hospitals instead.

I support the notion of a national health insurance scheme but only if it’s used for public healthcare.

Let’s call a cangkul a cangkul: the idea of extracting funds from people’s EPF accounts to pay for private insurance benefits not the average Malaysian but private insurers and hospitals.

Just look at their financial reporting for the last few years.

They make enough money already; we don’t need to give them the keys to our retirement funds.

My recent dealings with the EPF was a preview of how things will be if this proposal goes through — making health withdrawals will be likely near-impossible because the funds will be frozen to pay your insurance.

There are so many things that aren’t taken into account with this new idea.

It would only work if insurance premiums stayed low and only rose to keep pace with inflation, when in reality the older you get the more costly your premiums become.

Insurance companies also usually have an age cutoff not to mention exclusions for pre-existing conditions.

Will the rules for medical withdrawals instead follow insurance guidelines — with only specific procedures allowed, generic medications permitted and EPF getting to decide patients’ treatment plans?

We could learn instead from countries with national health insurance schemes such as China, Japan and South Korea or from Singapore’s dedication to preventative healthcare.

Singapore starts early by taking a more serious approach to physical education in schools while also encouraging as well as facilitating healthy lifestyle choices among its populace.

Meanwhile in Malaysia, we keep hearing of school canteen operators selling slop at expensive prices to our children who are now shorter than ever thanks to an increase in stunting.

Why must we constantly shame Malaysians for “personal choices” when we never make the healthier choice the easier one?

I would love for diamonds to be taxed but apparently precious gems and metals will not be included in the SST expansion but dried mushrooms, a very common ingredient in Chinese cookIng, is.

Make it make sense.

I could live with a tweak of tax brackets if it meant that I won’t see my oncology nurse be close to tears because there are too many patients and not enough staff to handle them all.

Money should never be what decides who lives or who dies.

I want more doctors, more nurses, more health interventions for lower income earners and more health resources spread around the country so cancer patients in Pahang and the East Coast don’t have to travel all the way to the Klang Valley to be seen.

Do not tell me that is not possible or practical when more has been spent on far less important endeavours such as our version of National Service.

Perhaps bean counters see the cost of public healthcare as just an expense and not an investment.

What do I see?

I see women far older than me, frail-looking and tiny, resolutely showing up to their appointments.

I watched a bow-legged man walk hand-in-hand with his wife as she hobbled along with a cane along a hospital corridor.

On Threads I read the stories of a woman with Stage 4 cancer resolutely trying to live for her children despite the money running out for her drugs, who comes in for treatment on the same days that I do. (You can donate to her here)

At the hospital I see people who want to live or at the very least, are doing their best not to die.

They deserve better than a system that considers withholding treatment for lack of payment a cost-savings.