Medishield life premiums to increase/ made compulsory to help SG govt save money?

PainRack

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The $16k left over in medisave that should have been spent rather than coughing out cash, I too cannot understand why, especially if your father in law (FIL) had used subsidised care all the way since I too agree that the full bill for subsidised hospital care should 100% be medisave deductible (" pouring cats and dogs for them now")- you should have seen your MP and had this legislatively sorted out- again, compulsory (/ higher) premiums would do little to solve the problem of Ill considered laws interrupting medisave use for essential medical treatment. Your described spillover of medisave into special account and then underfunding essential medical care is also an obstacle that demands looking into.
Can you PLEASE read what Inix said? That's 20 years of treatment for diabetes before renal failure kicked in.

Do you know why he has lots of Medisave left? Because diabetes is treated outpatient with stuff like cash for foot screening, eye screening, medicine and routine hba1c screening(I think for Inix then should be more of routine peripheral BGM with occasional hba1c)

For HIS time, before the major advent of CDMP, Medisave was NOT applicable for chronic disease. It is now, but the withdrawal limits/co payment means that a good amount of it is still paid for with cash. The system is DESIGNED to leave behind a good amount of Medisave for future use, to help reduce the risk of fund depletion.

It has literally nothing to do with whether you have or don't have Medishield.

Your 'fishy' story accusation is nothing of the sort, because guess WHAT ensures you have a healthy Medisave account? Not. Being. SICK.

Trying to claim that my story is 'fake' because its impossible to have a healthy Medisave account if you have Medishield is stupid. The premiums itself is designed to be low cost(hence why high deductible) and priced below Medisave contributions. You would have to have Shield intergrated plans to go beyond median Medisave contributions/

I thus saw no point filling a leaking bucket with water (bad stewardship of resources).
So what happens then? You let the elderly population go without healthcare because its bad stewardship of resources?

You treat the root cause of increased health needs, namely, an aging population? How do you do that?
Compulsory euthanasia? Nope?

Then you WILL have an increased need. And you need to finance that need.


You can try to control and reduce costs, and you're utterly ignorant if you're unaware of how Singapore has been trying to do so for decades but its will be a miracle if you can somehow index healthcare inflation to normal inflation. We're already bucking the trend by keeping healthcare inflation to extremely low levels for a 1st world country and the argument IS being made that the cost controls are coming at a sacrifice in sustainability.

Its impossible to believe that you're going to be able to reduce demand and control costs in the next few decades. We are having an aging population. The only thing that will reverse that need is if you eliminate the aging.
 

Inix

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The proposed reforms to Medishield does include covering congenital diseases and a more comprehensive coverage for pre-existing illness since you can't opt out anymore....... although I note that no mention is made of HIV still. Which means that a min of 1/3 of PWA will still receive inadequate care leading to a faster progression to AIDs....................

Thats MediShield. I'm more concerned about the private insurers. I'm an actual case now. Medishield covers me for my pre-existing illness, simply because I wasn't aware about it when it signed me on, but private insurers didn't cover me, because I declared as I bought them later.

I'm hoping that this will no longer happen for people like me loh.

But then again, with people like cherry around, I guess covering a newborn child with a heart defect is immoral, since their parents can just mortgage their house to pay for the hospital fees, eh? Why should young people have to pay for other people health problem when they have assets still?

Actually. Why do we need insurance? Why should you pay for other people health problem, at all? Just pay for yourself right?:s22::eek::s8:

By his logic, we should all just die if you don't have money loh. Forget about your contribution to the society. Forget about the fact that you have, in your lifetime, actually worked for a living, and that you might have actually did something useful to build the country.

Because your life now, is only worth as much as how much you can earn to self protect from people like cherry6
 
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Inix

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Its impossible to believe that you're going to be able to reduce demand and control costs in the next few decades. We are having an aging population. The only thing that will reverse that need is if you eliminate the aging.

By his logic, we should just kill any old and sickly.
 

PainRack

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By his logic, we should just kill any old and sickly.
There's a lot of victim blaming going around, trying to portray sickness as some morality tale where its your fault if you get sick.


Its.... simply not a justifiable social policy to design plans that way.Imagine if we were to use his thinking for other social policies.

Road Traffic Accidents are caused by people being careless, speeding, getting drunk. Does this mean we should design roads to miminise accidents and mandate car insurance to help cover the costs of such accidents? I mean, cars+COE already so expensive already, why have car insurance some more? Make cars only available for super wealthy.

Some more, we KNOW young people get involved in more accidents. This will drive up premiums since the company pay more in payout. Why should we allow young people to drive then? They get in accident bang our car how?
Some more, young people who own cars are usually those from elite, rich family. We should ban young people from driving, prevent them from increasing the costs of driving for people like us!
 

cherry6

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Thoughts of a non-communist compulsory membership system

Thoughts of a non-communist compulsory membership system.

Cherry6 feels that this discussion is getting too heated and wonders if the root of the problem is really being solved- that is why same age for same age, more people are expected to be diabetic in 2050- - 'One Million Diabetics By 2050 as Singaporeans Get Older, Fatter'- "Every one in two people, by age 70, will be diabetic - up from one in three today"(Men's Health, Oct2012, URL).

Is it because diagnosis techniques have gotten better, or because our lifestyles have gone down the drain due to work stress to buy a bigger and more expensive house and car to show off.
Cherry6 has never quit medishield since contributing to CPF and has supported medishield all along, supporting the auto deduction of medishield premiums fr the medisave account.

Also, cherry6 knows that the govt of SG makes like S$4billion p.a. from foreign worker Levy's and $8.75B from GST p.a. and $2B from COE sales p.a. and that the total bill for medifund last year was only like $100M (587,000 approved claims), of which just the foreign worker Levy's would cover the medifund payouts 40X over, so cherry6 wants to be sure that it is only the poor who are really being helped.

If obesity, the lack of exercise and consequent diabetes is due to work stress, then cherry6 would like to know if adding the burden of higher (/COMPULSORY) medishield payments would make life even more stressful and unhealthy for Singaporeans, considering that just 2.5% of the annual foreign worker levy collections could double such payouts for needy Singaporeans- whilst the middle income should seriously be encouraged to keep fit.

Like most Singaporeans, cherry6 doesn't mind paying more, however, cherry6 would like to see greater emphasis on work life balance, fairer property taxation, better means of reverse mortgaging HDB properties for essential healthcare, full medisave coverage for class C hospitalisations (non-cosmetic), greater availability of rental public housing to the most needy rather than HDB focus on building more ECs, and perhaps even a pegging of politician's salary to the median income of Singaporeans rather than the top CEO's salary so that their real KPI can be about improving the income of the median Singaporean rather than improving the income of the CEOs so that by extension, the pegging gives politicians the excuse to claim even more...

Pegging of political salaries:
ST23Mar2007-+Why+pay+must+go+up.JPG


And as in any compulsory inclusion system (e.g. NS, voting), these are all for the good of the state, benefits to the individual are rarely direct (remember cannot moneytise), so only the really poor will significantly benefit.

Social mobility will not be stifled, and the poor will live on.

And that is all that cherry6 has got to say for now.
 
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sunzoner

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You can keep staying in fantasy land. Literally everytime we debated about actual policy, your facts have been proven wrong over and over again, and you retreat into your personal fantasy bubble.

There is no need to imagine just what would happen. We ALREADY seen it happen, when they increase Medishield coverage from 80 to 90 years old. It went off smoothly enough, although the continued reliance on personal resources meant a constant influx of intergenerational resources was used for a portion of the population.

er....

You are trying to say that after medishield was adjusted the people paid more out of pocket and through their medisave?
Wasnt that what I said?

So why the need to attack me? For fun or you are just trying hard to troll?

Some people have to loosen up a little...
 

sunzoner

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...

Medifund is a process of last resort. Each application requires an submission in which your access to funds are enquired. The scale of assistance varies, but Medifund purpose is to help keep your healthcare bill affordable. This means that if you have kids who are say living in condo and still give you money, your application can be denied or in good scenario, given partial subsidy only.
...
Medifund is an instrument created to give the illusion that healthcare bill will remain affordable.

If it requires you to bankrupt your immediate family before you can access the money, then how can you call the healthcare bills "affordable"?
 

sunzoner

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...

The government has held that its willing to invest in capacity and even current spending, up to 40% of healthcare expenditure, but this increase is divided into capacity and increases in subsidies such as medication list.

Note it should be claimed. Their words have not been backed up by action.

...
The difference between you and sunzoner is that while sunzoner reduces everything down to simplistic details, you're ignoring anything that doesn't affect you personally.

The difference between you and me is that you believed that this govt will do something good out of this exercise, and I believe otherwise. Time and their action will proof who is correct. For my sake and everyone's else, I hope you are correct. But I highly doubt so.
 

cancer81

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having a healthy dose of scepticism (OR faith) in government is good for discourse.

discourse based on points and viewpoints are way better than discussing the difference between ideologies?
 

cherry6

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having a healthy dose of scepticism (OR faith) in government is good for discourse.
discourse based on points and viewpoints are way better than discussing the difference between ideologies?
discourse based on points and viewpoints are way better than discussing the difference between ideologies?
- huh?
 

Inix

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There's a lot of victim blaming going around, trying to portray sickness as some morality tale where its your fault if you get sick.


Its.... simply not a justifiable social policy to design plans that way.Imagine if we were to use his thinking for other social policies.
Seriously, most people I know of supports some form of Universal Healthcare, and are pretty open to more taxation to fund this. The truth is that we will use it one day, and having that assurance that we will be looked after when we are old is actually very important.

I mean, even the Chinese Govt are looking to provide social security so that the Chinese people would be more willing to spend their spare savings which will provide a boost to the economy.
 

cherry6

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MEDISHIELD LIFE- Problems with pre-funding

From the ST forum:
MEDISHIELD LIFE- Problems with pre-funding
Guess what the author n commentators are worried about is of the government playing the usual communist bait and switch trick (pretending to deliver the benefits of socialist community benefits)- laws are quickly amended and the payments (premiums) are enthusiastically collected but the funds are so corruptly and negligently managed that most communist promises almost always degenerate into shameless, oppressive ponzi atrocities.

In general, all encompassing Govt run socialism can only work under enlightened and impartial hands (both risks and benefits fairly socialised(redistributed), under the hands of leaders with obvious ulterior motives (e.g. moneytising one's position), compassionate capitalism in general works better with individuals at liberty to perform the charity themselves- remains a more stable alternative to a big but corrupt government- aka: 'animal farm'
The Straits Times; Published on Nov 19, 2013
MEDISHIELD LIFE- Problems with pre-funding
THE Government says the proposed pre-funding of MediShield Life is to benefit ourselves and not others ("MediShield Life: Panel to examine key issues"; Nov 10).
It explained that when we are young and working and have a good income, we can afford to put aside more into MediShield Life so that when we are old, we do not have to pay as much in premiums as we would otherwise have to.
Whether young working people can pay more is beside the point because premiums are paid using one's Medisave balance, and not current income, and tomorrow's seniors will likely have larger Medisave balances than today's young.
Instead of pre-funding MediShield Life, it is far simpler and more logical to retain the status quo. Leave the pre-funding premium in each young person's Medisave account and use this money, plus interest earned in the future, to pay for the true age-determined cost of MediShield Life when he is old.
Who would put money into a common savings pool if it requires him to surrender ownership of it, and he cannot even tell how much money is in the pool at any time?
And unlike saving the pre-funding premium in his own Medisave account, a person loses all his "unused" pre-funded premiums remaining in MediShield Life when he dies.
Also, new citizens or permanent residents start pre-funding only when they join MediShield Life. In contrast, most Singapore-born citizens will start pre-funding their MediShield Life earlier, possibly in 2015 when it is implemented.
Is it fair that newcomers in, say, 2030 get to enjoy the 15 years of pre-funding premiums paid by others?
Unless the Government succeeds in getting everyone to pay MediShield Life premiums, those who do not pay would also get to enjoy the pre-funding premiums paid by others.
It is difficult to avoid the perception that pre-funding is a "wealth transfer" from today's young to today's old, to make MediShield Life premiums affordable for the latter.
It also exposes today's young to considerable risk because when they become tomorrow's old, they have to depend on tomorrow's young to cross-subsidise their MediShield Life premiums - an inter-generation problem many nations face.
David Boey
Copyright © 2013 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
Problems with pre-funding

Comments on the same page seem to worry that medishield life will eventually take the form of a shameless, degenerate ponzi scheme:
Nicole7wong • 18 hours ago −
Good points raised, not unlike the debate currently raging in America and Japan.
It is in all likelihood that any money put into a common fund by today's working youth will be spent largely by the retiring babyboomers leaving little if any when today's working adults retires. This is just maths, with a inverted pyramid population there are just much more retirees tapping on to the medical fund than people contributing to them. Medical services are not cheap.
It is the almost the same story sold to the baby boomers when they are young with pension schemes. Pension schemes gets bankrupt before the people who contributed into them get eligible to enjoy them.
------
diealsomustbelikethat • 19 hours ago −
david is implying that the CPF scheme is a ponzi scheme. is there any truth to it?
-------
sgvoice • 19 hours ago −
I'm beginning to wonder why the government is so enthusiastic about pre-funding.
 
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cherry6

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How medishield life could end up no better than just another low brow ponzi scheme

How medishield life could end up no better than just another scam/ ponzi scheme.

PM Lee himself cannot guarantee that the reserves of Singapore are safe from the greased fingers of bankers hands, so how can I trust PM Lee's promise that "when we are young and working and have a good income, we can afford to put aside more into MediShield Life so that when we are old, we do not have to pay as much in premiums as we would otherwise have to."(MEDISHIELD LIFE- Problems with pre-funding) when the Prime Minister himself has said in 'Regulating tightly 'not always feasible''(full text) that (whilst ideally) "a wall should be built between the safer commercial banking functions - that mainly involve taking deposits and giving out loans - and the more risky sort that hedge funds and investment banks engage in - which Mr Lee said sometimes amounted to 'gambling'."..."financial markets have variegated into all kinds of sophisticated activities, products, derivatives, investment activities, trading - and the (commercial banks) are also in these" . "It's very hard to draw a line," ....""if all the banks threaten to die at the same time, governments cannot help but go and rescue them", as they did in 2008 and 2009"...

PM Lee must thus convince Singaporeans that he is indeed able to draw the line to avoid having to use Singapore's reserves (and CPF monies) to bail out banks whom he has alluded to are already transferring citizens savings to their investment arms performing "all kinds of sophisticated activities, products, derivatives, investment activities, trading - and the (commercial banks) are also in these". To have to use national reserves on this known and prevalent malpractice- just to replenish the basic savings account monies that bankers gambled/ squandered "'rescue them' as they did in 2008 and 2009"- is I think unconscionable.

In so far that the Singapore government refuses (or declares it impossible) to effectively draw the line between what is essentially the systemic risk from bankers gambling and the running of safe commercial banks (separate from investment banking arms), I unfortunately cannot trust the Singapore government to run a prefunded medishield scheme cos the exposure to banker's profligacy and gambling, makes medishield life no safer than just another sickening communist bait-and-switch method scam/ ponzi scheme.

'Regulating tightly 'not always feasible' article:
Regulating+banks+tightly+%27not+always+feasible%27-+PM+Lee.JPG
 
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sunzoner

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From what I read in the papers, medishield life seems to be yet another defined contribution plan. Whether it is the solutions some/many are hoping for remains to be seen...
 

Inix

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Medishield life isn't going to solve all our problems. But it is a step in the right direction at least. Medishield in its current context excludes far too many people, acting very much like a private profit-making insurer.

Medishield life, by covering everyone for life, is in effect some form of Universal Healthcare Insurance. The only question is how much they cover. If the current mechanics stays, it still won't be good enough for me, but it will at least bring everyone into its coverage. There will still be gaps, but smaller than before.

I do hope that the current mechanism will change. I am all for a little out-of-pocket expenses and it helps to reduce wastage. But the current system swings the pendulum so much to the other side that we are more worried about non-treatment of patients.

But obviously we also have people like cherry6, who believes that we should just let the sickly and elderly die, so let's see what the PAP will pull out of their hat this time around.
 

cancer81

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and I am certain that he/she is not alone

and small clumps of voters these days are way more powerful than silent majority.
 

cherry6

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Sampan2.0 cannot expect too much.

Sampan2.0 cannot expect too much.
Medishield life isn't going to solve all our problems. But it is a step in the right direction at least. Medishield in its current context excludes far too many people, acting very much like a private profit-making insurer.
Medishield life, by covering everyone for life, is in effect some form of Universal Healthcare Insurance. The only question is how much they cover. If the current mechanics stays, it still won't be good enough for me, but it will at least bring everyone into its coverage. There will still be gaps, but smaller than before.
I do hope that the current mechanism will change. I am all for a little out-of-pocket expenses and it helps to reduce wastage. But the current system swings the pendulum so much to the other side that we are more worried about non-treatment of patients.
But obviously we also have people like cherry6, who believes that we should just let the sickly and elderly die, so let's see what the PAP will pull out of their hat this time around.
U can, already as Singaporean, stay in class C ward at 80% discount off actual price, unlimited visits (but must be sick enough to be warded of course) like dat still not enough...

Now, every Singaporean has the chance to join medishield since birth (before birth if I'm not wrong even)- I never complain, still I pay annual premiums, have not made 1¢ in any claim.

"we are more worried about non-treatment of patients. " pls lah, are u exaggerating? Govt already says they have medifund, if u really need help- 587,000 applications were helped last year, why you so suay, cannot qualify or u just worried cos your pte insurance plan cost just too much. For me, I have only medishield n nothing else, but I keep fit, watch what I eat n exercise regularly, I wonder if under medishield life I should continue a healthy lifestyle or just go with the majority of Singaporeans who intend to make diabetes a way of life so that they can test the limits of medishield life. Btw, NKF will currently help those who are poor and on dialysis which we all know is expensive.

N then we haven't even started talking about 'minimum wage'- which the PAP keeps evading time and again with their bull$hit (workfare) so thick, even the folks at MOM cannot tahan the stress that they have to demand some very expensive cushy chairs just to implement this out-of-this-world workfare cheap thrill whilst trying to spot the phantom Singaporean worker/ salary-overdeclared-rebate-foreign-talent under the complex foreign worker levy scheme.

As mentioned, I really don't mind paying more for your care, but first, convince me that Singaporeans have been properly educated and convinced to keep fit and secondarily, that PM Lee can actually control reckless commercial banks (DBS, OCBC, UOB, SCB, Citibank, HSBC, BOIndia, these are ALL categorised as commercial banks BTW) and just lean back and say "'gambling'."..."financial markets have variegated into all kinds of sophisticated activities, products, derivatives, investment activities, trading - and the (commercial banks) are also in these" . "It's very hard to draw a line,".

Otherwise, pls just go exercise and live a frugal but healthy life and if all else fails, ask medifund n NKF and I'm sure u'll qualify (so long as no too many Singaporeans compete to apply).

Just remember, as PM Lee says, Singapore is sampan 2.0 remember- cannot expect too much, i'm talking to you too long today already, I have to go catch some fish for dinner before its too late, bye.

BEC1lPN.jpg

ST23Mar2007-+Why+pay+must+go+up.JPG
 
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sunzoner

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...

As mentioned, I really don't mind paying more for your care, but first, convince me that Singaporeans have been properly educated and convinced to keep fit and secondarily, that PM Lee can actually control reckless commercial banks (DBS, OCBC, UOB, SCB, Citibank, HSBC, BOIndia, these are ALL categorised as commercial banks BTW) and just lean back and say "'gambling'."..."financial markets have variegated into all kinds of sophisticated activities, products, derivatives, investment activities, trading - and the (commercial banks) are also in these" . "It's very hard to draw a line,".

Otherwise, pls just go exercise and live a frugal but healthy life and if all else fails, ask medifund n NKF and I'm sure u'll qualify (so long as no too many Singaporeans compete to apply).
...

Not possible. Even if I do everything in my power to stay healthy, the air pollution called the "Haze" will still come. Having said that, other air pollution from cars (i dont drive), oil and gas plant, and even smokers still exist in singapore. Of cos, you are also assuming the current doctrine on staying healthy is correct and will not actually leads to more health problems.
 
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