Hold off Mean Testing

Timothy Chin appealed to Khaw Boon Wan to hold off mean testing in his letter to Today. His justification is that time is bad and recession is here. He suggested that hospital should compete for high end clients but also provide for no frills wards for those who do not want the frills. Then he compared the charges for B1($165.85) and B2($51). In his opinion, the difference is too great. He then suggested an intermediate grade like B1a. His overall reasonings are reasonable until this point. By pointing out that charges for these two wards are too wide will prompt only one kind of reaction. Ok, B2 should be raised so that the difference is smaller. And this exactly the kind of thinking Singaporeans will have, a variance from his own B1a. My point is that the ward charges remain and mean testing stops. Let the people decide what they want. Let the people be thrifty and save if they can and want to. Do not imposed on people to spend. The latter kind of thinking is the most ridiculous and can only happen here. Making people spend according to how much money they have. This is one of the reason why Singaporeans have very little savings in their CPF for retirement, simply because HDB flats were priced on how much they can afford to pay. Higher income must buy bigger flats.