The Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy said BNM’s response came following public backlash and numerous reports that people were terminating their policies in the face of double and even triple digit percentage increases of their health insurance premiums.

“The horse has left the barn,” its CEO, Azrul Khalib, said in a statement.

Azrul said Galen Centre had in July pointed out that the central bank’s directive for insurance and takaful operators to provide a co-payment option for their medical products by September was “problematic”.

Such a strategy, he had said then, would likely cause increased economic and medical hardship, large out-of-pocket payments, patients delaying medical treatment, and people terminating their insurance policies altogether.

It would also not address the problem of high healthcare inflation, he had said.

“Therefore, what is seen today is neither unexpected nor a surprise,” he said today.

“Disappointingly, the earlier concerns were not taken seriously by neither BNM nor the insurance industry and private healthcare providers.”

Azrul called for a parliamentary inquiry, which should be empowered to summon government and non-government representatives, to look into the fees and charges imposed in private healthcare facilities.

The inquiry’s hearings and findings should be made publicly accessible, he said.

He also proposed for an independent statutory commission to regulate charges in the private healthcare sector.

“A regulator, similar in role and powers to the Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC), is urgently needed and should be established,” he said.

Azrul said the commission could be mandated to independently review charges and fee increases.

If the commission found the increased rate to be unjustified, excessive or unfairly discriminatory, it should be subjected to review and publicly disclosed, he said.