Aliran Monthly, Vol 26 (2006): Issue 1

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This is a special issue focusing on the proposed revamp of health care financing. Our first piece looks at the Health Ministry�s proposal, which requires Malaysians to make monthly health insurance payments to a new National Health Fund.

In response, the Coalition Against Health Care Privatisation, comprising 81 NGOs, has come up with a People�s Proposal that would not burden ordinary Malaysians especially those least able to afford higher health care costs.

We also carry a report on a forum on the same theme held in Kuala Lumpur in December. Among those present was the former D-G of Health, Tan Sri Dato� Abdul Khalid Sahan, who explained why the free market does not work for health care. Yet another story calls upon Malaysian women to get involved in the health financing debate as �women hold up half the sky...including the health sky�.

Our centre pages focus on the debate in our Media Monitors' blog surrounding the controversial memo by nine non-Muslim Cabinet Ministers that was submitted to the PM and later withdrawn. (Have you checked out the blog recently?)

You must have caught the critical comments by Justice Gopal Sri Ram in the Metramac judgment, which prompted Daim, Mahathir�s longtime economic czar, to come up with a rare statement defending his role. We carry an article by Terence Gomez, originally published in 2001, which looks at what eventually sparked the rift between Mahathir and Daim.

In our back cover story, read how the Oppressed People�s Network (JERIT) succeeded in forcing the Deputy Human Resources Minister to discuss serious workers� rights issues in a rare meeting.

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