Health financing: federalise or de-federalise?
On Sept 16, Malaysia celebrated 58 years of being a federation.
This federation, originally formed by the union of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak today consists of 13 states and three federal territories functioning with a federal and individual state governments.
While most of us know that we are a federation; some may be confused about what that actually means.
As a federation, power in Malaysia is distributed between central and state governments, as defined by the Malaysian Constitution. Some matters are exclusively within the purview of the central government such as foreign policy or defence, while others, such as land, and forest fall under the jurisdiction of the individual states.
Health and social welfare, interestingly, are matters which fall under shared concurrent jurisdiction in Malaysia.
The health ministry provides and funds most public healthcare services; but states also have roles in implementing and managing local health programmes.
As everyone probably…
