Healthcare: I’m thankful we have a prudent SG govt

“No matter how much the government raises taxes, there is no consolidating the budget unless social welfare spending is curbed,” said Robert Feldman, head of Japan economic research at Morgan Stanley MUFG in Tokyo. “If the government continues to let the spending swell, it will get out of control.”….
National budget outlays on social welfare spanning health care to pensions climbed 23 percent over the five fiscal years through March 2015. Medical-related spending, which accounted for 32 percent of social welfare outlays in fiscal 2012, is forecast to soar 54 percent to 54 trillion yen in fiscal 2025, according to the welfare ministry.
Abe needs to put more priority on social-welfare reform to prevent the system from becoming unsustainable, said Hitoshi Suzuki, a senior researcher of Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo….
I am thankful that we have a very prudent govt in Singapore. You should all be thankful too. Our govt spend prudently and ensure that basic healthcare services are provided without burdening the whole system.

By Concerned Citizen on unfettered bashing of our govt

This Concerned Citizen wrote an article posted in the TRE with the above heading on the excessive healthcare spending by the Japanese govt. He quoted a Washington Post/Bloomberg post with the above comments. The gist is that Japan was overspending on healthcare and this is becoming unsustainable even if taxes continue to go up. And this is the reason why this Concerned Citizen felt so appreciative of our Govt for not overspending in healthcare. He is very concerned that our Govt will go down the road of welfarism.

I can share his concern and agree with him that we have such a prudent govt that did not spend excessively in healthcare. But he is only right in knowing a little of the truth. Our Govt had sent two study missions to Japan led by Boon Heng and Gan Kim Yong, one to study how to solve the ageing problem and the other about healthcare. From the dearth of information on these two trips after their returns, I can only hazard a guess that they found that there was nothing much that we could learn from the Japanese.

The revelation by Concerned Citizen and the Bloomberg report confirmed that the Japanese experience was nothing useful and maybe irrelevant to our case. If the report is true, then Japan is facing a crisis that would get graver by the days. We must not go along that path. And we don’t have to. We are in a very superior position financially as we did not spend much in healthcare. The people are paying their own medical bills. Now the Medishield Life Scheme will make sure that the people would foot their own bills without burdening the Govt.

The end result is that the Govt would have a lot of money for other pursuits from the savings in healthcare. We are so comfortable that we could use the money to party and party like there is no tomorrow. Next year we could see the country partying the whole year round, with big budgets for celebrations within the country and with countries around the world. We can invite foreign dignitaries here to party and they will invite us over to party in their countries.

We are very rich. We have so much money to spend on happy things. We could spend billions and billions on mega projects that would require hundreds of millions of dollars for annual maintenance. We bought top universities almost lock, stock and barrel. We owned think tank schools with scholars from the world, paid by us handsomely of course, to come here to think.

Notice that I use the word, ‘We’? Yes, we the people are paying for it. See how comfortable we are? We could have such a good healthcare scheme and with so much money to spend in other good to have glorious and fun stuff. Wait for the next National Day when we parade the F35s and our aircraft carriers.

By being prudent in healthcare spending, we can afford not to be prudent in other areas. Don’t worry, be happy. Money is not an issue. Prudence? When we have so much money to spend, there is no need to be prudent. We only have to be prudent in healthcare.

Kopi Level - Green