Medishield Life – What to worry about?

Gan Kim Yong has fleshed out some of the details concerning premiums payable in year 2015 and year 2019. Under Medishield Life, with higher payouts and benefits, it is expected that the premiums should logically be higher. But given the fact that the coverage is for everyone, young and old, covering the whole population with everyone paying, would there be economy of scale to offset the premiums to make it even lower instead?

Gan Kim Yong announced that the premiums would be held unchanged for the next 5 years which is quite reassuring. This is possible by taking into consideration all contingencies that could be foreseen, a kind of front loading. So whatever that needs to be added in, real or imagination, or just to take care of the unexpected has already been added to the premiums payable. Just wondering what is the percentage in this front loading to the actual cost? If it is 30%, it means the premiums are already 30% higher than it should be. And this is a very conservative guess. What if you have a decision maker that wants to think of everything under the sky that could crop up and wants to include them for safety measures, never mind, it is ok to collect more?

Would Gan Kim Yong be transparent as to how much has already been added in the calculation of the premiums? There are enough statistics from the Medisave schemes to give a reasonable estimate of claims against cost. As Gerald Giam has pointed out in Parliament, the claims came up to be 67% of the premiums collected. I stand corrected if the number is slightly different from Gerald’s number. The data shows that there is room for the lowering of the premiums instead of raising it like someone who wants to cover front and back and top and bottom, every hole that he can possibly think off or imagine.

Gan Kim Yong has given the impression that he is very concern about the cost of premiums and wanting to ensure that it will remain affordable. I find the affordable formula frightening if the cost of medicare in hospitals is not reined in and not allow to run away like a wild horse. It would be more reassuring if he also announces that the policy and objective of the Medishield Life is not profit making and any profit would be ploughed back to lower the premiums in the future. Would he commit to this?

The other frightening thing about the premium tables is the premium for the oldies. Oldies are expected to continue to pay premiums up to the age of 90. How many people would have the money to pay premiums at that age? Many would have long retired by the time they reached 65 or 70. The PMEs may even be retired by 50 or 55 and cannot find reasonable employment. There are exceptions for people to work to 90. Maybe you can find some working as cleaners in the hawker centres and food courts.

Would Gan Kim Yong want to consider lobbing off the senior citizens from his tables, say by age 70 or 75? Would it be too big a burden for the govt to pay for the oldies? He has said that there will be more govt subsidies to help the seniors, why not have a policy to remove them from the premium tables and the govt absorb the cost? Under the PGP, those 80 and above will not have to pay for the Medishield Life premiums. Is this applicable to those in the pioneer generation but not yet 80? Why is this not extended to the future seniors when they hit 80? How many seniors in the future can afford to continue to pay Medishield Life premiums after paying for a life time and no longer having an income?

Kopi Level - Green

Can Singapore play the property investment game?

The property developers are crying foul. The cooling measures must be lifted. To them, property prices must go one way, up and up. And the only thing good about the property investment game is to let property price to go as high as it possibly could. I fully agree with this kind of thinking if I am a property developer or property churning investor. It makes good sense, and very good profit when property prices shoot to the sky.
 
As a govt, there are other considerations and the interests of the people, the rich and the poor, at stake. A govt cannot allow property prices to run crazy except those who have a vested interest to want it so. There were some missteps by the govt by allowing property prices to spiral out of control and causing a lost of hardship, and an extremely high price system that is no longer sustainable. The property prices are way too high against the income of the average citizens and are eating away their income.
 
Fortunately the govt is having second thought in spite of the pressure from the property developers. If the property developers are allowed to set the agenda, the rich of the world and property speculators would all be here to buy up everything and we just don’t have enough properties to sell to them. They could literally buy up the whole island in a laissez faire, anything goes system.
 
We are just too small to play the property investment game in the world market. The govt must review its policies on the property market and come out with a clear policy direction it wants to take. Unless it can create a dual market where the citizens can be protected from the world’s super rich, to be able to afford properties within their means and not priced out of reach, allowing a free and unrestrained property market will create a very grave situation for the average citizens.
 
The govt may want to introduce more cooling measures instead, to keep properties at a sustainable level for the citizens and not to allow cheap money to create havoc to the lives of its citizens. We may have reached a saturation point in the amount of properties we can afford to sell to the speculators and investors of the world. To bring in the speculators of the world into this island is sheer madness and irresponsible.
The property developers must not be allowed to call the shot on how the property market should develop. Their only concern is profit and do not have to bother about the lives of the citizens and how an uncontrolled property market could make life unbearable and unaffordable to the ordinary citizens. They don’t have to care.
 
They should go and compete in the world market, develop their properties all over the world in the same way Singaporeans are told to go overseas. The sheer size of our population will create a squeeze that will be unbearable if the property market is as open as our immigration policies. The average citizens will be screwed real hard and skewered by the property developers and speculators. This simply cannot be allowed.

Kopi Level - Green

What is SMRT thinking?

Commuters and the public are not amused by the latest SMRT initiatives to make commuting more relax and fun. SMRT is going to encourage buskers in the stations, paint the trains according to themes of the day, like football season and more. These frivolous things cost money and will eventually be passed to the commuters.
 
What is making the commuters and public seeing red is the obvious disconnect in the thinking of the SMRT management and the needs of the commuters. The commuters are not asking for the sky or pole dancing in the train cabins. All they are asking for are smooth, fast, clean, not smelly and less jam packed trains. Are these too difficult to understand?
 
The frills that the SMRT are planning to roll out are an astounding piece of ‘out of touch’ work, totally oblivious of their mission and the needs of the commuters. Who could come out with such ideas, some foreign talents or someone living in the ivory tower?
 
It is amazing, really amazing, that top dollars are being paid for this kind of queer thinking. Oops, don’t say that. No need to be rude. The SMRT is public transport and not a circus.

Kopi Level - Green

Complimentary roles of the USA and China

China and the USA have been working hand in hand to restructure and redevelop the countries of the world towards a new future that no one is saying and expecting. The mission of the Americans is destruction, like mother nature, to bring down govts and infrastructure wherever they go, akin to clearing the tables. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and earlier, the African states are the latest examples of countries needing reconstruction. Wherever the Americans visited, there are bound to be wars and destruction. Countries are torn apart and turned into waste land and the economy runs aground. It makes reconstruction and rebuilding easier and absolutely necessary. Thank you Americans.
 
The work of China is cut out for it. China has all the necessary skills and expertise to rebuild these broken countries. China also has the money to do it. There is nothing about politics but restoring economies in a mess, rebuilding the infrastructure and recreating the lives of the people in desperation. The experiment in modern China with all the brand new cities built over the ancient cities that were crumbling by the ravages of time is the model to look forward to. Every new and sparkling China city is a new hope that China could transplant to the broken states in Africa and the Middle East and anywhere in the world that the Americans have laid to waste.
 
Wherever and whenever the Americans moved out after their mission of destruction, China would move in to rebuild and to repair the damages left behind. China has a lot of work to do to help the destroyed and failed states to rise again, like China did for itself in the last 40 years, if they can do away with the politics of war and destruction.
 
China is the new hope for these countries, to rebuild a new world for them. One came to destroy and the other to rebuild. One destroys the lives of the people, the other to give hope for a new and better life. The world is changing in an unusual, unplanned and unprecedented way. Or is it part of the bigger scheme of things of the invisible hand?
 
It is unbelieveable! China is in Africa and moving into the Middle East, and Iraq in particular, while the Americans are moving out. The Americans and the Europeans could not be the contractors as they were together in flattening those countries and would be killed by the natives. The Chinese were a non interested party to their destruction, a neutral contractor that comes with no political strings attached. They have the money and the technology, and a competitive offer to match.

Kopi Level - Green

Time to trim wasteful spending

If the state of our CPF retirement scheme is a guide, I don’t think the country can continue to indulge in wasteful spending. It is time to cut down on vanity projects, projects of grandeur and fancy, spending on things that we don’t need, wasteful and extravagant parties, throwing money at all the foreign talents that we don’t need but good to have, etc etc.
 
Think how much we are wasting on all these unnecessary stuff and how the money can be put to good use, to better the life of the people, reduce medical cost, housing prices, lower taxes, and returning the CPF money to the people?
 
The number of foreign professors in the universities, the number of academics in the so called think tank schools of international relations, the avatar garden, the F1 and the likes, the projects and institutions that we don’t need to have, the parties and parties here and overseas, the celebrations and celebrations…. These are things that we can do without or at very much smaller scales and less frequency. And I am not talking about the extremely high salaries that are looking not only funny but ridiculous. The myth that we are getting value for money has been exposed. How many people believe that the money paid is worth it, that the receivers are really worthy of the millions being paid? It is plain excessive and unnecessary.
 
It is time to trim the sail and check the compass, where are we heading? The speed and direction are going nowhere but towards the cliff. Unsustainble! Use our reserves and spare cash wisely for the good of the people. Be prudent with public money and don’t think it is an unlimited source of fund, an unlimited supply of OPM.
 
Remember, there is no free lunch and the party must come to an end when the fun or fund runs out. Settle the CPF money with their rightful owners first and until this is done, the splurging like there is no tomorrow must stop.

Kopi Level - Green