The intention is noble, but blunt price control is the wrong medicine. Health care cost inflation is real, but controlling private hospital prices by command may create a worse disease: less investment, fewer hospitals, weaker competition and poorer patient choice.
Malaysia is trying to become a regional health care hub. That ambition needs world-class tertiary hospitals, advanced equipment, specialists, medical tourists, insurers, hotels, laboratories and training ecosystems.
If the Ministry of Health (MOH) imposes heavy-handed price control, investors will ask one simple question: “Can we recover our capital?” If the answer is uncertain, they will go to Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia or Vietnam instead.
Private tertiary hospitals require massive capital: land, building, ICU, cath labs, robotic surgery, MRI, oncology, digital systems, accreditation, nurses and specialists. These are not cheap businesses. If prices are politically capped while costs keep rising, investors will delay, downsize, or cancel projects.
The rakyat will not benefit from fewer hospitals. They benefit when there are more hospitals competing for patients, specialists and insurers. Competition forces hospitals to improve service, reduce waiting time, package prices better, and treat patients with respect.
Malaysia has already seen this principle in telecommunications. When the country moved from monopoly-style telecom services to multiple licensed operators, competition expanded choice, improved services and pushed prices down. The same logic applies to hospitals: more players create pressure to compete.
Price control may protect inefficient hospitals. When the government fixes prices, weaker hospitals do not need to innovate; stronger hospitals cannot differentiate properly; and patients lose the natural benefit of market discipline.
The real problem is not simply “hospital greed”. Costs are driven by imported drugs, devices, exchange rates, technology, insurance design, third-party administrator (TPA) behaviour, defensive medicine, staffing shortages, utilities, compliance costs and delayed payments. A price cap attacks the symptom, not the cause.
Heavy price control will also discourage overseas tertiary centres from entering Malaysia. Why would Mayo-style, Bumrungrad-style, Apollo-style, or Singapore-linked tertiary players invest billions here if their pricing freedom is uncertain?
If Malaysia wants medical tourists, we must offer quality, speed and confidence. A controlled-price environment may signal that Malaysia is not investor-friendly. Medical tourism grows when private hospitals can build centres of excellence, not when every charge is treated with suspicion.
There is a better way: enforce transparency, publish comparable package prices, mandate itemised bills, stop abusive unbundling, regulate insurance and TPA practices, encourage ambulatory centres, promote diagnosis-related group (DRG)-style reference pricing for common procedures, and strengthen competition law against monopoly behaviour.
MOH should regulate safety, quality and ethics. It should not become the price controller of every private hospital service. Once bureaucracy controls price, bureaucracy indirectly controls investment, innovation and growth.
The best protection for patients is not fewer hospitals under tighter control. It is more hospitals, more transparent billing, more competition, more informed patients and stronger enforcement against abuse.
Therefore, Malaysia should not frighten away health care investors. Open the market, attract more tertiary hospitals, publish transparent prices, punish abuse and let competition work. The rakyat will benefit most when hospitals compete for them, not when hospitals are trapped under blunt price control.
Fun Fact 1
Foreign Patient Health Care Revenue (Malaysia)
2023 : Foreign Patients – 1.40 million, Revenue – RM2.24 billion
2024 : Foreign Patients – 1.60 million, Revenue – RM2.72 billion
2025 : Foreign Patients – 1.84 million, Revenue – RM3.34 billion
Fun Fact 2
World Bank Policy Research, January 2020, notes price control can dampen investment and growth.
Fun Fact 3
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says competition can control costs and increase efficiency in health care.
Fun Fact 4
Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), February 2024, reported RM11.2 billion approved investment in 86 private health care facilities, creating over 18,000 jobs.
The author is the immediate past president and founding president of the Association of Private Practitioners Sabah (APPS).
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
