CEO Forum with Dr Wing-man Ko

The College of Business was delighted to have Dr Wing-man Ko, BBS, JP, Secretary for Food and Health, HKSAR, as honourable guest speaker for CityU EMBA/MBA students and alumni at a CEO Forum held at the Connie Fan Multi-Media Conference Room on 29th April.

Prof Way Kuo, President of CityU, Prof Arthur Ellis, Provost of CityU, and Prof Jian Lu, Vice-President (Research and Technology) of CityU, welcomed Dr Ko, who was then accompanied by Dr John Leung, Programme Director of EMBA and Associate Professor of the Department of Marketing, to meet with the students and alumni at the Conference Room.  Prof Houmin Yan, Dean of the College of Business, then opened the forum.

Dr Ko discussed the concept of the Health Protection Scheme, a type of health care financing scheme first proposed by the Hong Kong-British Government in 1993 but not yet introduced.  This scheme aims to ease the workload and pressure of public hospitals and healthcare staffs, and provide a government-regulated, reliable and sustainable health care service for private healthcare users who can afford higher premiums.  Under the scheme, private insurers would offer standard and regulated insurance plans targeting middle-class citizens. Private hospitals would then provide service packages of high price-transparency, thereby increasing the chances of citizens opting for private hospitals in the case of treatment and medical advice. 

The scheme has been modified based on the feedback received from multiple public consultations since the inception of the health care reform. This revision process is ongoing.

Dr Ko emphasized that “The government treasures public health care as the core element of our health care system and as a safety net for all Hong Kong people. Therefore, we will continue to strengthen and develop our public health services. But on the other hand, it is also a fact that the health care expenditure is rising at a rate faster than our economy growth rate.”

 Dr Ko concluded his presentation with a question:

“How then, can we ensure the substantiality of our health care system in the long run? It is an important issue for the government to cope with.”

For information about the Heath Protection Scheme, please visit http://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/panels/pan1216.htm