8/26/2013

Shadow chasing as an art

The Medishield Life is the latest govt effort to solving the high unaffordability problem of health care in Singapore. Admission to a govt general hospital has attracted the same fear as in the days of yore. Our parents and grandparents generations feared hospital admission due to ignorance and the perception of death as most illnesses were left too late and became too serious that admission was akin to dying. Today the fear of admission is more practical, cannot afford to pay and better to die. So here comes the white knight waving Medishield Life in his hand as the saviour of the troubled and very sick.

The runaway property prices have sent shivers down many youngsters and their parents for not being able to afford the affordably priced public housing. The truth that the affordable public housing was unaffordable finally sank in without any admission of guilt or ownership for creating this financial and social fiasco. Alright, never mind, no need to go witch hunting as the problem is being addressed by the most simple solution, to build more flats to meet the high demand. In some way the problem is being tackled with some success but with the prices remaining high and still going higher. Yes, the high price is not really a problem and is allowed to go higher albeit at a slower pace.

The high cost of living coupled with high inflation have made the money so much smaller, or a bigger income but smaller buying power. The silly and ignorant are still very happy that their income is growing and oblivious to their purchasing power. The most badly affected is the average Sinkie with a stagnant real income. The solutions offered so far are more subsidies and more subsidies.

The above three major bugbears of the citizenry have a common syndrome. The high cost of medical care will continue to go higher. The high cost of housing will continue to go higher. The high cost of living will continue to rise. None of the solutions to these problems touches on the need to stop the prices and high cost of living from going higher. Somehow this is not seen as a problem or the cause of all the problems. The prices and high cost of living must naturally go up. Or is it that they cannot be brought down? Or is it that it is good to let them go higher and higher.

I am still very curious why aren’t anyone tasked to solve these problems wants to bring down the runaway prices and cost of living/inflation? In a way this is similar to the population growth. Population growth is a necessity, an unstoppable reality, a must have. Without population growth the whole economy will go on a tailspin and the economy will fumble. So population growth must continue to grow. It is unstoppable, the fourth unstoppable growth that must not be fiddled with or be messed around.

A simpler way to look at this problem solving approach is the high prices of goods due to demand and supply. Both demand and supply affect the price and the price can be managed by fiddling with demand and or supply at the same time. But the mindset is just to tackle from only one side of the equation. How effective can this be or will it be? Or how real is the solution if one is closed to looking at the other part of the problem?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I can have one wish for this national day is to have MEDIFREE LIFE for all Singaporeans.

Under MEDIFREE LIFE, seniors 65yrs and above get free healthcare for basic classes for life. It is simple, see how money we need and how we can fund the costs as a NATION. Be open about it. This is how we can bring the NATION together. Remember, any other things are useless, if there is no health!

We can do it as a NATION.............

oldhorse42 said...

I suppose I do not have to pay for this medishield life as I am in the pioneer generation group. But taxes will have to be increased to fund this scheme. GST will certainly go up and may be other taxes do. So I will still be hit in the pocket. On balance I hope I can opt out of the scheme.

Anonymous said...

So what we need to pay higher taxes if we know that healthcare for seniors is free for basic classes for life......you can always spend less on others.........healthcare is number one!

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

The only PROVEN ways to stop inflation, and to regain purchasing power in the currency, is to stop printing up so much money, and to bring down reserve ratios at the banks.

Since everyone is in a debt situation which they cannot pay, central banks have to keep printing so that a "liquidity crisis" doesn't occur.

To make matters worse, the original debt that was created has now been sliced and diced and re-packaged into trillions of financial derivative products.

DEBT is the world's LARGEST asset class. The total amount of money in existence is INSUFFICIENT to pay back all that debt. Which means the central banks will be printing for decades yet -- until something eventually breaks -- ala 1997 Asian Currency Crisis.

Japan's central banker -- Haruhiko Kuroda -- is turning out to be an even bigger money-printer, more aggressive than Bernanke (US Fed) or Dragi (ECB). This is the core of "Abe-nomics" -- Shinto Abe's grand and dangerous plan to un-fuck Japan.

Where does a lot of that printed, debased, loosing purchasing power money go? Usually into HARD ASSETS -- like Singapore real estate. More money chasing limited supply of goods ==> the nominal price of those goods rises.

b said...

The solution is simple: the high costs of whatever will go down when those at the top have less pay and we have less mayors, ministers, civil servants who are doing nothing and not super talents but just pocketing money every month.

The money from coe and erp can easily be used to give children and elderly free healthcare. Where is the money? Guess everyone has a bloodly good idea.