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Stakeholders’ voices

The EHCVS actually encourages doctor shopping. It’s the same thing here
if we launch another voucher scheme, and the same problem may repeat.
Academic

I can see that the current use of health vouchers will be
wasted if we are only looking at the health vouchers for
treatment of minor aliments instead of health promotion.
Policymaker

Most EHCVS users spend the vouchers on episodic illnesses
like common cold and cough, or for getting new pairs of
glasses. These are not serving the intended purposes.
Professional body representative

Theme 5. Meticulous planning is necessary for effective
implementation of the Scheme

Subtheme 5.1 – A long-term vision is needed for the design of vouchers as a health
financing tool. Drawing on previous experiences from the EHCVS, apart from designing the
vouchers to be convenient to use, stakeholders overwhelmingly agreed on the necessity
of identifying certain target populations when designing voucher schemes.
Some interviewees opined that age would be a proper selection criterion, but others felt the
need to further narrow the criteria down to demographic groups where high prevalence of
chronic illnesses is observed.

Stakeholders’ voices

You (the Government) will have to think of ways to identify this group of
working class–the “[living] from hand to mouth” group… people above 45
who are in cleaner jobs, working long hours, construction site workers...
Academic

It’s not quite possible to provide it (voucher) to everyone. At this
point, possibly the priority should be absolutely clear. It (voucher)
should not be for anybody just above the age of 45, because only
people who have the luxury, time and health consciousness will
consume this, rather than those in need.
Academic

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