Health into two category to either public

Health is important to an individual.

In the Budget2017, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has announced that thegovernment had allocated a total of RM 25 billion to Ministry of Health (MOH)for the use of nation’s health expenditure. The allocation given included theuse for building and upgrading new hospital also the hospital facilities. While, in Budget 2018, there is an increase of 9. 5% or 1. 7 billion which is RM 26. 58billion from RM 24.

88 billion in 2017. Plus, government said that they willfocus more on healthcare welfare of the poor people, Total health expenditure is the sum of both publicand private health expenditure. This expenditure covers the provision of healthservices for both preventing and curating expenditure, family planningactivities, nutrition and emergency aid for health. In some other words, healthexpenditure is use to help in improving health system. Health system is neededto combat diseases and increase the health status of population. Based on the line chart above, the data explains theupward trend of health expenditure throughout the years.

The data shows thatthe health expenditure was the lowest during year 1997 with only 2. 72% while the highest was 2014 with4. 17%. Based on the line graph above, the highest growth was in 2002 to 2003with 16. 18% growth while the highest dropped was in 2004 to 2005 with 12.

1%. Basically, health expenditure can be divided intotwo category to either public or private sector. But, among both, privatesector will be allocated more than public sector because private sector isimportant to attract more medical tourist. So, government will give more focusto the private sector  because it willgive higher return in term of number medical tourist than public sector. Plus, public sector will mostly focus on the service for local patients only.

In view of health expenditure, for over the pastyear, Malaysia have experienced significant improvement in the healthcaresystem. Plus, health is not only a vital requirement in human need but healthis an investment. So, investment in this area is important to stimulate theeconomic growth of a nation.

The health system in Malaysia is a two-tier systembetween public and private healthcare system. Public healthcare is accessibleto all Malaysian and funded by the government to provide low cost andcomprehensive services. In the relation with the large number of ageingpopulation in Malaysia as well as increasing number of population, governmentstarted to increase funding in the public healthcare. This is proven by Tang(2007) who studied the relationship between health expenditure and income. Heused group population over the age of 65 years old as his variable and foundout that the particular group population was positively related to thehealthcare expenditure in the long-run. While public healthcare dominated the localindustry, over the past years, private healthcare system has seems to begrowing tremendously. This is due to the aim that government has to escalateprivate sector by endorsing more investment on this such as manufacturing ofpharmaceutical products, medical devices, clinical research, aged-care servicesand supporting collaborative efforts between both sector (“ Healthcare”, n.

d). The increase in invest of private sector can be seen in the amount of moneyallocated in 2018 Budget which is RM 30 million to help in growing medicaltourism industry. Other than that, there were collectively 40 projectsannounced under the NKEA Healthcare which targeted to create 26, 966 job opportunitiesand generate RM 6. 59 billion income as well as RM 4. 96 billion of newinvestment by 2020.

Aswe were moving closer to 2020, the focus will be more on projects that willchange the landscape of Malaysia healthcare industry which will emphasis oninnovative solution towards higher quality and affordable healthcare. Plus, thedemand for more healthcare solution increase in an era where there are lots ofchronic and lifestyle disease and increase in ageing population. So, increasein healthcare expenditure is relatable to the innovative solution and NKEA aimsto spur a veritable shift in the delivery of healthcare in the country