The recent announcement that MediShield Life’s coverage would be expanded to cover new ground-breaking treatments is in keeping with the protective purpose of the scheme. Launched in November 2015, the basic and mandatory health insurance plan revolutionised healthcare in Singapore by offering protection to all Singaporeans against large medical bills for life, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Expanding the scheme’s coverage to new ground-breaking treatments – specifically cell, tissue and gene therapy products, or CTGTPs – would represent arriving at a new healthcare frontier. Some CTGTPs are life-changing. Given that the quality of healthcare is an essential index of national well-being, Singaporeans need to look at MediShield Life premiums – which look set to increase correspondingly – in the context of living in a society where children, especially, do not have to perish from treatable conditions. The scheme’s expansion deserves popular support.

Of course, cost considerations will remain important and get weighed by the authorities against the benefits of therapeutic outcomes. Thus, a treatment is not deemed cost-effective if it is fairly expensive but has only a small chance of curing a small group of people. Given this approach, there is no danger that economically exotic treatments will find their way into MediShield Life coverage, thereby raising premiums unreasonably for Singaporeans at large. However, CTGTPs which are assessed to be safe, clinically effective and cost-effective, do need to be on the list of options available to Singaporeans.