I refer to the article “Lack of money for medical bills tops Singaporeans’ retirement fears: Nielsen survey” (Straits Times, Feb 25).
It states that “Singaporeans’ biggest fear when it comes to ageing is not having enough money to pay for medical bills during their retirement, a survey has found.”
Healthcare “propaganda”?
The propaganda that we have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, which is “affordable” has been going on for years.
At practically every conference on healthcare in Singapore or overseas – participants are told that we have universal healthcare because no one will be denied treatment for financial reasons.
They are of course referring to Medifund.
The propaganda has been stepped up with almost daily dosage.
Some recent examples are:
Singapore Budget 2014 measures ‘debunk view that health-care is unaffordable’: Khaw” (Straits Times, Feb 23)
“Spend more, to keep healthcare affordable” (Today, Feb 22)
“Singapore Budget 2014: Bumper health-care support package for Pioneer Generation” (Straits Times, Feb 21)
“Healthcare sector takes steps to tackle bed crunch” (Channel NewsAsia, Jan 8)
Healthcare is affordable?
If healthcare is indeed “affordable” – why is healthcare costs cited as the greatest concern of Singaporeans in their retirement?
Why is it that a recent survey found that some patients chose to die without treatment due to concerns about healthcare costs?
Why has the number of successful Medifund applications in a year, increased to a whopping over 500,000?
Why are there no statistics on the percentage of patients rejected by Medifund?
What percentage of patients may be told that that they do not even have to apply, because they clearly fail the criteria?
Why is the criteria secret?
Why are public hospitals owed more than $100 million after writing off about $90 million?
Why do the last available statistics indicate that such a large portion of people in debt cited healthcare costs as one of the reasons?
Why has the total number of hospital beds not increased at all over the last 12 years or so?
Why is our public healthcare spending for the last reported financial year, at about 1.4% – probably the lowest in the world?
Why is our proportion of public healthcare spending at about 33% of total spending – the lowest among developed countries?
Why is it that the recently announced 1% increase in the CPF Medisave contribution rate is expected to increase total contributions to Medisave accounts in a year by at least $860 million – which is about 3 times the $260 million first year cost of the pioneer generation package?
Still not spending a single cent on healthcare?
As total contributions and interest credited to Medisave accounts is estimated to be $11 billion in a year, which may exceed total withdrawals from Medisave accounts plus total public healthcare expenditure, Medifund payouts, etc – from a cashflow perspective, we may still continue to not be spending a single cent on healthcare?
Leong Sze Hian
