MP wants health insurers probed over excessive profiteering

PKR’s Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin urged Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to investigate insurance companies for excessive profiteering by increasing premiums.

He told a press conference in Parliament today that the central bank has the power to regulate insurance companies.

“We would like to call on BNM to investigate and review insurance companies that have issued notices of insurance premium increases,” he said.

If the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry could launch investigations over a price increase for eggs, Sim said, surely BNM could do so over insurance premiums increasing over tens and hundreds of percent.

Last week, Sim and other PKR MPs announced they began an initiative to gather public feedback on this issue.

He urged Malaysians to share their experiences by emailing aduan.pkr.hospital.insurans@gmail.com.

Today, he said they have received 71 complaints so far, with one being from a retiree with cancer who had to let go of their insurance plan due to an increase in fees.

The patient is now being treated at a government hospital, he said.

Sim said should the middle class be affected by rising insurance premiums, there could be overcrowding in government hospitals.

Excessive charges

He said another email was from a person whose younger sibling had an accident and was treated at a private hospital for RM200,000.

Eventually, the patient was referred to Tuanku Muhriz Chancellor Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, where they were treated for RM60,000.

Sim pointed at this as an example of a private hospital inflicting excessive charges on a patient.

“So I want to show here that excessive charging does exist.

“And I didn’t show which (private) hospital as we don’t want to embarrass anyone, but I am just bringing this case to public attention because there is definitely a difference between private (hospital) charges and semi-government (hospital) charges,” he added.

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