ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the regulatory framework within which private health insurance and the semi-private bed scheme can be mutually reinforced. There are both structural and technical constraints in implementing the social insurance approach in Hong Kong. Technical constraints can be solved if the government and the society at large are committed to the establishment of social insurance in financing and delivering health care. In the eyes of the government, compulsory public health insurance constitutes hypothecation of revenue which goes against established government financial principles and practice. The implementation of social insurance in health care is perceived as a threat to the practice of financial principles enjoyed by the government and its bureaucrats. Towards Better Health remarks that ‘The start-up cost of a public insurance scheme involving some 5.75 million people is enormous’. So, the government regards it as being very expensive to set up the infrastructure to run a centralised health insurance for all the people in Hong Kong.
