Health Minister Ong Ye Kung stated on Thursday ( October 10 ) that precision medicine therapies will be covered by MediShield Life to keep the cost of these treatments affordable for Singaporeans.
He claimed that the Ministry of Health ( MOH) intends to take the proposal and that the MediShield Life Council had recommended expanding MediShield Life policy to approved accuracy medicine therapies.
” That way, the approved precision medicine therapies or high-cost treatment can be brought into our payment, MediShield Life and MediSave… help model, and all Singaporeans can benefit from these treatments”, Mr Ong said in , his conversation at the opening ceremony of the Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress 2024.
Next week, the council’s tips may be made public.
By tailoring medical procedures to an individual’s genetic traits, sequencing has made it possible to treat a serious illness or live longer.
But , it can also be “very cheap” and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per care, said Mr Ong, describing this as a “double-edged aspect of perfection knowledge”.
” In period, precision medication will increasingly become popular medical practice. However, I do n’t think any healthcare financing system in this world is designed to fully fund precision medicine”, said the minister.
This implies that if healthcare is left on its own, just the wealthy will be able to provide precision medicine, creating significant inequalities.
The government is making steps to “in a green way” adopt precision medicine and get ready for its mainstream use.
Singapore is also accepting the suggestion for MediShield Life to cover precision treatments, as well as investing in local abilities to create such treatments, reduce output occasions, and lower costs in the near future.
Health systems analysis has also been strengthened to “robustly review” the cost-effectiveness of high-cost treatments, including accuracy treatments, he said.
” Where they are proven to be scientifically and cost efficient, we will subsidise these treatment”, he added.
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Biological data can be used by insurers to choose whether or not to cover insurance, such as how much a person can get charged and what to exclude.
This undermines the purpose of insurance, which is to protect us against “unexpected bad luck, including being dealt with a bad genetic hand at birth”, said the minister.
The Life Insurance Association and MOH have collaborated to place a moratorium on genetic testing and insurance, which forbids the use of genetic test results for underwriting for insurance.  ,
However, at some point, this moratorium needs to be strengthened. According to Mr. Ong, the health ministry is developing new legislation to regulate the use of genomic and genetic test data.
This aims to address “potential undesirable outcomes” like the discriminatory use of genetic information in industries like employment and insurance.
” We will conduct extensive consultations and hope to introduce the Bill to parliament in the coming one to two years,” he continued.
Additionally, Mr. Ong addressed potential ethical issues brought on by advances in medical technology.
He noted that while defective genes can now be modified to treat illnesses, the same technology could theoretically be applied to the design of babies before their birth.
They may also allow companies to select employees based on a person’s genetic qualities.