5/14/2010

Paying more in advance

So the Medisave minimum sum will be raised from $32k to $37k. The reason, Singaporeans are living longer and healthcare cost are going up. So who wants to live longer? What this Medisave thing is about is that Singaporeans who are strong and healthy will have to pay first, to the amount of $37k. Whether they use it or not is a separate matter. Any statistics to say how many will use it? But this is a good policy. No one will know when they will fall seriously ill and need money to pay the expensive and ever increasing medical bill. I would like to recommend that the amount in the Medisave be raised to as high as possible. Then no one will complain that they cannot afford to pay their medical bills or that hospitalisation is too expensive. With a big saving in the Medisave, hospital bills will definitely be affordable. No need to worry about how medical cost keeps going up. Just make sure to top up the Medisave Account.

16 comments:

Wally Buffet said...

I simply do not understand why Singaporeans are griping day in day out about high medical costs here.

While on a trip to Hong Kong recently, I visited a specialist clinic for a ear infection. The Bill? $1.200 Hong Kong dollars for some antibiotics and ear drops.

As a senior citizen over 65, I can go to a polyclinic and pay only $4.50. Medicines will be something like another $10 tops and the total bill will be less than $20. One Sri Lankan crab, medium size is about $50 in seafood restaurants nowadays for comparison.

My mother of 88 was recently warded for a liver cyst and stayed in a government restructured hospital for a week. The total bill plus surgical costs? About $3500. And good service, professionalism shown to boot.

So frankly, what are we all complaining about?

Beats me.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Wally, the issue is about paying $32k to $37k in advance.

Also, not everyone can fork out $3k to $5k every now and then. You are so bless.

Wally Buffet said...

Keeping more money in medisave is for your own good so the less disciplined will not flop it over the casino tables.

By the way, we built the casinos ostensibly to attract the foreign high rollers. It seems that only the taxi drivers, the China national labourers and street walkers visit according to media reports. So putting more money with the CPF which pays a good interest rate compared to the banks is a wise thing to do.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Yep. Singaporeans will all be smiling when they received their CPF and Medisave statements. They will all die laughing at how much they have in their CPF and Medisave.

Why is it that I got the feeling that I have been robbed?

Wally Buffet said...

Actually, if you have that funny feeling that you've been robbed, it's all your fault because if you had planned it like I did, by the time I retired, there wasn't much in it to be robbed.

Now, I get about $450 from them every month to fill up the gas tank, go for seafood dinners and happy hours. I'm not complaining. In fact, I wanted to put some more money to earn more interest as compared to the banks but they said, no. So to me, it's a very benevolent scheme.

agongkia said...

My colleague was in and out few times to hospital for specialist check up.He feel giddy again and again.Some docters say his ear water cannot balance and some say he need a brain scan.Some even say he got heart problem.
He cannot take it leow as this nonsence can cause his job.He ask the docter why not check his blood pressure as he was never check.They then start to check him and found out that it is the blood pressure that cause the problem.Just take some pills for high blood and the problem gone.
He is complaining to me now that if they check the pressure earlier,he could have save thousands of dollars.If one have too much saving in his CPF ,I only worry one thing.

Wally Buffet said...

Nowadays this new doctor graduates not very skillful and think only with a one track mind. Your friend must be very young so they think no need to check blood pressure as only the oldies get high blood pressure. But having said that, youngsters having high blood pressure, unless it's not a consistent problem, is very unusual so he may need to go back to the specialists for more tests and checks and of course spend money.

Don't worry too much about the high balance in your CPF, otherwise you may end up like your friend. Just relax and let everything takes it's normal course. What for worry if you can't do much about it?

Anonymous said...

One of my sibling resides in Hong Kong for more than 3 decades and only comes back once in a blue moon. Each time after staying for a week or two she and her son would yearn to return to HK. And the reason invariably is it is too boring and everything too expensive.

Though my sister is madly in love with the local foods, she and her son would not want to stay back just for it. My sister is still a SIN citizen(and a PR in HK) had sought medical treatments here(SIN) due to fever and accident and these medical consultations made her more wanting to return to HK.

In Hong Kong, she pays about SIN$20to be treated and or hospitalized and that's it. Before the 70s when the British System was still in practise in SIN, medical cares were as practise in HK now. A (very)small nominal sum was all that patients have to pay.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

redbean:

> Any statistics to say how many will use it? <

Stats in this case won't be able to accurately predict the future. When a govt tries to run an insurance company, the end result is sad usually because it runs out of OPM (other peoples money) resulting in shortages and followed by rationing – i.e. who lives, who dies, who is “more deserving” of the scarce resources.

What is needed is the govt out of healthcare and a free market system allowed to evolve based. Price communicate the most efficiently, and the best protection for the individual is private medical insurance. Private companies then base (actuaries) their model on the stats, and take position (by backing up their “speculation” with real, privately owned money) and adjust accordingly.

Anonymous said...

Young people with hypertension nowadays is no longer unusual, and I have a few young relatives getting afflicted. I am not exaggerating, mind you.

A decade ago, it may be unusual, but not now, with all the pressures of job, worries about mortgage, car loans, family finances and not mentioning medical needs.

A better life today compared to a decade or two ago? Different people have difference opinions.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Some biz cannot be left to market forces and medical care is one of them. Given the unscrupulous lust for making more money to chase that runaway property prices, the tendency to want to squeeze every $100k from the patient is very high.

Healthcare must be returned to the govt as a public service. Let those who want to make money go to the private sector. The public healthcare may be slightly less glamorous and may even suffer a small knock in quality if the best want to go to private practice, but it protects those without the money, or with some money, from being fleeced.

Anonymous said...

I wonder. Some think we are still cheap compared to Hong Kong, some think we are too expensive. I am confused!

Maybe, given a choice, it is better to die than to fall sick. JBJ was right after all.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

redbean,

there is not one single public health system in the world which is working properly. Budgets blow out. People die. There is rationing. Waiting queues can run into months or even years.
However, if it is your position to support such a doomed-to-failure system, so be it.

You have the right to be wrong :)

agongkia said...

Wally Buffet 11:59
But this friend of mine is in his 70s.Use knee cap to think also can know that he should have a BP test.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

This is what Dr Goh said to the new admin officers. Look at what we have built not as the final goals but as a stepping stone to achieve better things, or something like that.

Whatever we have built can only be better if we think better. Look at the lousy mess the housing policies are creating today when the earlier generations had already solved them from a worst situation!

And at the rate we are going, our health care is going to be another big mess that will make every worker a bankrupt on admission.

Anonymous said...

Paying in advance for 'nothing' is just pure nonsense.

This is not just perverted scheme, this is bloody SIN-FUL SCHEME.

Which other countries in this World have this arrangement???

Me got no money to seek medical care, just let Nature or my family handle me loh. Me will not blame any leader, but, if they take my money in advance, me says: I AM BEING BULLIED!!!

patriot