Maybe it’s the rules that need to change
I refer to Opinion Editor Chua Mui Hoong’s article “If a new player disrupts the rules, maybe it’s the rules that need to change” (Sunday Times, Jan 10).
Patients choosing subsidised wards increase to 70%?
It states that “In 2000, 26 per cent of all public hospital patients opted for C class wards, which enjoy subsidies of 65 to 80 per cent.
In 2014, 46 per cent did so. It might be time to tweak a system that results in such skewed behaviour.”
According to a Straits Times article on 18 July 2015 – “Combined with B2 class, the proportion of public hospital patients choosing subsidised care went up from 70 per cent of the total number in 2000, or 194,000 patients, to 80 per cent last year, or 272,000 patients”.
Review healthcare financing model?
The above may underscore the need to review our healthcare financing model which from a cashflow perspective – means that the Government is not spending any money on healthcare, as annual Medisave contributions plus account balances’ interest exceed public healthcare spending and Medisave withdrawals for expenses and premiums.
This healthcare financing model may be pushing people’s “fears of healthcare affordability” to the limits of the capacity of the subsidised wards and treatment clinics in our public hospitals.
Guardians of the public purse?
As to “It will be a greater challenge for our social regulators, brought up in decades of parsimony, to rethink their role. They shouldn’t see themselves only as guardians of the public purse. Instead, those who control social funding should develop the instinct of venture capitalists looking to support deserving social innovation” – let’s look at our public housing model as a possible analogy for discussion.
Review HDB financing model?
Charging market land prices into the price of HDB flats may have pushed the limits of affordability such that many Singaporeans have insufficient CPF savings to retire.
The public purse of “market land costs” for HDB flats may need to be reviewed in the light of the axiom “which is the bigger problem?”
Leong Sze Hian
