I just received notice from my insurer to pay the premiums for my medical coverage (hospitalisation) for this year.

The premium was up 38 per cent from last year. Last year, it was up 20 per cent from the previous year. This is even though I am still within the same age band.

What will happen when I move on to the next age band? How high will my premiums be?

My insurer gave the reason that private hospital costs are rocketing to two to three times higher than that of public hospitals'. This has been confirmed by the Health Insurance Task Force.

One important factor behind this is private medical practitioners gouging their clients through the insurers.

Very often, the cost of seeing a private doctor or specialist is doubled when the patient is insured.

Recently, it was reported that someone had a lumpectomy done for $40,000 when the average cost is $5,000.

I wonder why insurers have not banded together to counter such malpractice.

I have heard of people dropping their healthcare coverage altogether as they can no longer afford the increasing premiums.

Are we to wait until there are no insured left and insurers have to shut down their healthcare departments before doing something?

Silvester Goh