By Jessica Jaganathan

THE pool of Singaporeans without basic health-care insurance is set to shrink.

The Ministry of Health is aiming to reduce the proportion of people without MediShield from 16 per cent to a single-digit number. MediShield provides cover for those who opt for subsidised wards B2 and C in general hospitals.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan is confident of achieving the goal because measures introduced in December 2007 have proven to be effective, he said in Parliament yesterday.

These include buying MediShield automatically for newborns when the birth of the child is registered.

Parents will pay the premiums and those who are opposed to it can opt out when registering the birth. Currently, 98 per cent of newborns are covered.

Similarly, MediShield is bought for uninsured Primary 1 pupils. Again, parents will pay and can opt out. So far, fewer than four per cent of parents have opted out, said Mr Khaw. His ministry is also working with national schools to extend coverage to their students.

For adults, it is working with NTUC to get their members to buy MediShield for their spouses.

Following these moves, the number of people with MediShield shot up by 200,000 last year, said Mr Khaw.

He gave these numbers in his reply to Nominated MP Paulin Tay Straughan, who had asked what proportion of Singaporeans had no health coverage.

She also asked if the practice of private agencies willing to insure only the healthy will cause a serious gap in the health-care system.

Mr Khaw said insurers do not cover existing medical conditions as it would have the unintended effect of some buying insurance only when they are sick.

That would be 'unfair to the existing policyholders', he noted.

'Instead, the correct response is for Singaporeans to get insured from a young age, preferably soon after birth, before any health condition develops,' he said.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.