The Ministry of Health (MOH) has had plenty of right to reply - all credit to Malaysiakini .

My Feb 12 article, 'Ill-Feelings over 1Care in East Malaysia' was accurate. The 9.5% of household income came from an MOH presentation on August 2009. See chart below:

The MOH presentation continues:

“All estimates are made based on the assumption of population averages for annual utilisation and cost. Primary healthcare visits are estimated for six annual visits per person.

“Specialist clinic visits are estimated on 0.78 utilisation rate and inpatient care on 0.09 utilisation rate (NHMS II).

“The Malaysian population is estimated as 28,306,700 (Department of Statistics, 2009). Average household size is 4.3 persons per household. (Department of Statistics, 2006)."

Please refer to the MOH concept paper, 'Restructuring the Malaysia Heath System' .

This 9.5% premium mooted assumes administrative cost will be 5%. This figure is simply not credible.

The MOH "clarification" boils down to insisting that my report about 1Care is "malicious". This hardly advances debate.

On the contrary, the failure of the MOH to involve our citizens in negotiations about the proposed healthcare reforms has led to many critics expressing concern for the health of all Malaysians, especially for the middle-income and low-income groups. Is such a concern "malicious"?

Reforms are certainly required. But the MOH must engage all Malaysians in a transparent debate over these reforms. Can the health minister and director-general start the ball rolling by holding a 1Care public forum?

This would be even better than the very civilised forum organised by the Citizens' Health Coalition - a discussion the MOH did not attend, despite an invitation.