Salma Khalik kpkb about medical insurance

Following closely behind Han Fook Kwang’s unhappiness about the free hand given to medical insurers to change their premiums and terms of coverage, Salma Khalik has written another piece to highlight the ‘abuses’ or liberties given to insurers at the expense and interests of the insured. Not only can insurers raise premiums, but could stop insuring someone with serious conditions, change the coverage or not even paying for what they deemed should not be covered under the insurance plans. And the insured is stuck with an insurer and changing to another insurer would be difficult or not possible. Salma is yelling at the MAS to do something for the good of the insured.
Medical insurance has always been a commercial transaction with the insurers thinking only of profit as their main objective. And the insured would be at their mercy, to be made to pay for their profits all the way. And this can become a scam to the consumers. And this is something that is not addressed in the proposed Medishield Life Scheme.
 
To be serious, for the interests of the the people, the Medishield Life must not be farmed out to any private insurers. It must be managed as a govt service like the CPF, ‘for the good of the people’. I know some of you are sneering. Nevermind that this is a truism that is found wanting. The profit motive of the Medishield Life must be taken out from the equation. And to ensure that this will be the case, all the excess revenue from premiums should be ploughed back to lower the premiums of the insured in the scheme.
 
This is a govt initiated compulsory national scheme and must be managed with morality and social responsibility as the key principles, not profit. No one should be allowed to covet the revenue churned out by this Medishield Life Scheme and to lay their hands on the surpluses for whatever devious schemes they have in mind in the future. Any surpluses must go back to the people in the Scheme.
 
In a small way this could ease the buffet syndrome and cut down on excessive consumption of medical services if the insured know that by not over consuming they could end up paying less, paying just enough.
 
And it should remove totally the desire by anyone to think there is money there for harvest. Oh, there are so much money in the Scheme, let’s make it more affordable, or the money can be put to better use. Take your hands off the money!
 
Don’t touch the money in this compulsory Scheme. It is the people’s money, forced to pay ‘for their own good’ and it must stay that way. If the govt is serious in its intent ‘for the good of the people’, keep this out of private insurers or any insurers. This must be a non profit making govt scheme, with govt regulated terms and conditions and coverage for all with no exceptions and exclusion clauses.
 
Not that I have agree to a compulsory scheme, but it is not going to be otherwise, so everyone must make the govt know that the surpluses in the Scheme must be retained in the Scheme for the benefits of the people in the Scheme.

Kopi Level - Green

Jin Soh Lee apologises to Desmond Quek

Singaporean commuters are feeling so guilty for causing the frequent breakdowns of MRT trains that a Jin Soh Lee felt obliged to say sorry to SMRT CEO Desmond Quek for making him work so hard to solve the breakdown problems. Another Singaporean, Boh How Seow suggested that Sinkies should stagger their time to board the trains to prevent overloading so that the trains will feel lighter and no need to crawl at a snail pace. He will be going on a diet to reduce his weight to have ease the load on the trains.
 
And another Singaporean, Jin Kay Khian, suggested that more electronic boards be installed at MRT stations to inform the commuters on the capacity of arriving trains and how many spaces are available, like signs for carparks. He credited this suggestion to an MRT station that have installed ‘traffic lights’ to regulate the flow of commuters. With such advance information, the commuters can decide which train to take or not to take. It will help to ease the load on the trains too.
 
I think MRT should follow other organizations to call for feedbacks from the public on how to improve its services, on how to maintain the trains so that there will be no more break downs. Conducting a COI will be good as there are many experts among the commuters to offer specialist advice for free. The aunties and uncles and Boh Tak Cheh will have a lot of clever ideas to offer.
 
What do you think?

Usman Harun – What was the drumming all about?

Out of the blue Singapore was caught in a verbal spat with Indonesia over the naming of a frigate after two terrorists that exploded a bomb in the heart of the city in the 1963. Were there any signs that something is brewing that the public do not know? Was the cancelling of the contract to buy natural gas a precursor to this spat? There was also an announcement by Indonesia not selling granite to us after the gas contract was terminated. Subsequent to the blow up of the frigate naming it was reported that the Indonesians were planning to erect statues in honour of the two terrorists they regarded as heroes in Batam, literally right at our door step. What else did the public were not privy to that drew the ministers to make their firm objections to the frigate naming? Did they know something more sinister than the public?
 
The sequence of events with publicity in the media, in the TV networks, revealed that a lot of work and resources had been involved in putting up the media reports and TV programmes on the issue. To the public it seemed to come out of the blue but to the govt it was a coordinated event to make a very strong point to the Indonesians with the risk of heightening tension between the two states. And if not managed carefully, if both sides were less restrained, we would have a crisis at hand.
 
Fortunately the event has now quiet down and relations are at even heel, I hope, after the ‘storm in the tea cup’. This prompted some to comment that it was an exercise to drum up the spirit of nationalism among the Sinkies that has ebbed. The people seem to be taking the relative peace and security for granted and a dose of nationalism with an external factor could be good for the soul of the nation.
 
Assuming that this is a possible reason, it makes sense for the leaders to come out one by one to talk tough and for the media to keep splashing spreads of articles on the subject daily. There was a hype to arouse the sense of belonging, a national identity and a need to stand up for the country.
 
If this is the objective of the exercise, the response from the people was muted. Not many took heed of the call to rise to the occasion. There was an absence of a public outcry to support the leaders’ call. There was not much anger or excitement towards a possible external aggressive intent. It was a non event.
 
Why didn’t the people answer the call of the leaders to speak as one voice against an external event? Is it another case of complacency, that the people did not see anything unto it, that the naming of the frigate was uncalled for but so what? Or was it that the leaders were not forceful enough to rally the people behind them? If the intent was to gel the people as one with the leaders, it did not happen. The people were not aroused, or was it a case of the leaders not inspiring the people to rise to the occasion, to take the cue and follow them? Was it a test of leadership? Or was it a gauge on how apathetic the daft Sinkies are?
 
There was no spontaneous outcry like what happened to Anton Casey. It was just like a rehash of a past event, a lesson in history. Period. The people did not feel the spurs on their hide to feel anything.
 
What do you think?

Battle of China

The forgotten history of American China relations was recorded in a film made by Frank Capra. This movie can be googled under the title ‘Battle of China’. Today China is enemy number One to the Americans for no other reasons than a challenge to its world domination as the number One superpower. China was friend and ally in World War Two but enemy when it turned to communism and joined the Soviet camp. The Cold War and rhetoric embedded in the generations of post war Americans see China through a tinted glass and reinforced by the daily barrage of western media and propaganda. The reason then was communism.
 
Today China was anything but communist. China is the number trading partner of America. China is America’s number One financier. China is sending its bright students to America to learn the American way of life. China is a capitalist state in the mould of America but with socialist ideas. China has many commonalities with America and has many common interests too. But China is seen as an enemy, promoted in all literatures as an enemy.
 
The Yellow Peril still lingers in the mindset of the Americans. But the Yellow Peril came and gone, in the form of little yellow Japanese, as quoted in Frank Capra’s movie, that sunk the American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour. The Chinese are arriving in America and in Canada as normal immigrants, economic immigrants, not the likes of little yellow Japanese with plans to conquer America as in the Tanaka Memorial of world conquest. The Chinese do not have such a plan.
 
In the Battle of China, America was China’s biggest ally. America provided all the logistics and weapons, from artillery pieces, vehicles, fighter and bomber aircraft, to China in its fight against the invading Japanese. The Americans trained and equipped Chinese soldiers and airmen in Arizona and New Mexico, and fought side by side with them against the Japanese Imperial Army. America played a vital role in saving China from the Japanese. And the British, Dutch and other European soldiers were also fighting on the side of the Chinese with the Americans.
 
Why is it that China today is America’s number One enemy and Japan is America’s friend? The craps about ideology and communism belonged to a bygone era. The two economies are intertwined and interdependent on each other. Both countries can prosper together and there is no real reason to maintain a mindset of hostility. China is not there to conquer America or the rest of the world like the Japanese. China does not have a plan for world conquest.
 
It was only opportune that America won the Second World War or else it would become a colony of Japan. Australia too would be a Japanese colony. Though it is no longer feasible for such an ambitious plan by Japan to rule the world, the psychic of the Japanese is very different from the Chinese. The former is still harbouring the desire to revive Japanese Imperialistic glory while China is only reclaiming what belongs to her and were taken away during the days when it was a semi colonized country.
 
Can the Americans tell the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese? Which is the real Yellow Peril? Let me quote a short passage by Craig White from his book, ‘In Search of the Origin of Nations’.

‘Documents discovered in military archives in 1993 uncovered
a Japanese plot to attack Sydney and Melbourne with bubonic
plague, the black death. In its Harbin biological warfare centre
in Manchuria, the infamous Imperial Army Unit 731 succesfully
bred plague bacteria (in addition to cholera, typhoid, anthrax
etc) and deliberately infected 3,000 Chinese, Korean and
Mongolian civilians with the diseases from which they died
horrible deaths. Plague-infected fleas were dropped over Changde
in Hunan Province and elsewhere, resulting in an epidemic which
killed several hundred in a few days. As the war was drawing to
an end, they planned to send plagues into Samoa, Guam and the
Philippines as well as Dutch Harbour in Alaska. Journal records
show that Unit 731 was ordered to ensure that the bacteria could
be taken by ship or submarine to Sydney, Melbourne and Hawaii and released to kill hundreds of thousands.’

Little India riot – Snippets of COI

The details of the inquiry on the Little India riot are being reported fully in the media. The transparency index is as good as 100% with everything in the open. So far, other than the experts in the COI committee, the witnesses are also proving to be experts themselves. The two Certis Cisco officers are giving very good and expert views on the situation on that night and on how the riot could not have happened if the police were well trained to handle such a situation and acted swiftly to arrest the trouble makers before the situation worsen. This is a valuable piece of information that the police should take note of. Maybe the police should recruit them into the force to conduct lessons on riot control. These are officers who have lived experience in a real riot, something like soldiers with war experience, been there, very valuable people to have.
 
Another thing that surfaced from the expert opinions is that the foreign workers were really like little innocent children, very nice but very soft. And the woman bus attendant was like Hercules, rough handling them. And with a push these construction workers from very polite environment in the villages, would be sent flying. I am exaggerating here. It was reported that they fell down when pushed by the woman attendant. The bus operators must take note of this and hire gentler bus attendants to handle the construction workers with more tender loving care, like little children. It is just not nice and not proper to manhandle these men, oops, I mean children, or treat them roughly, like shouting at them or pushing them around. Maybe a male attendant would be more gentle and can do the job better than a strong woman.
 
Maybe it was the pushing and the rough handling by the woman bus attendant that made these very nice construction workers very angry and wanted to kill her and burn the bus, according to the expert eye witness at the scene who understood Tamil spoken by the rioters.
 
There are so many valuable information and lessons to be learnt from the evidence coming out from the COI.