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

[PainRack]

PM Lee contradicts his father (LKY) in proposing compulsory medishieldlife subscription policy.

Hi Pain, Er, thought both u and Inix favoured the common pool thingie... so that your so called aged sick could get more out of medishield? But now u about turn and quote LKY to say personal medisave account is better... but isn't the concept behind medishieldlife about common pool risk pooling?

I didn't. I quoted him because he knew exactly how Singaporeans like YOU would react.

Namely, suggest any form of common pool and you be against it because its taking money away from YOU.

so yes, the govt (LKY vs son-Pinky) are at odds.. but why are you, and by extension maybe Inix too also confused?

No, they're not. You're under this mistaken assumption that prefunding is giving money to the elderly now.

Tan Kan Lian actually hit it on the dot. Prefunding on its own is supposed to mean that when you're young, you put in more cash so that there's more funds available to support you for your needs when you're old. That's how the PAP view it.

However, healthcare inflation and the unpredictable costs mean that as an idea, it will be too hard to work under the current system.

And please remember, as long as the pool is there, insurance IS a common pool. The difference is namely who pays more. Our system is currently based on arcturial tables. So, if you're over 70 years old, you pay more. If you're below it, your rates drop, quite dramatically if you compare 80 to say 30 years old.


Do you even know WHY the government is considering prefunding? To put it simply, the current scheme takes in too little money to cover the expected healthcare costs for our aging population. Those 40 year old now, when they become older and hit 70, IF they're not prefunded, the premiums won't be 600 or 700 dollars, it will be way more just based on how many 70 year old there's expected to be as well as the expected rise in demand. If you wait till then to collect money to cover the expected costs, you're going to have to charge a lot of money, something that's going to hurt even more because people at that age aren't supposed to have a steady income to cover said costs.
Whereas if you take in the money now, the power of interest and just more capital will give you a larger cash pool.


There's.... a lot of issues with working this out and Tan only just spouted one aspect of it.

In fact, I couldn't quite tell Inix apart from a communist since he seemed so eager about the poll tax short cut rather than debating on better applied property taxes and healthy lifestyle campaigns to solve th e problem instead of communist bait-switch quick-fix solutions.

Just HOW is a poll tax communist?
I mean, a poll tax has NEVER been used by any communist state as a defining policy, ever.

PS, I am not so antisocial to totally disagree with common pool risk pooling, however, I am not so communist to say that it must be COMPULSORY. I have long said that since govt annual revenue is in excess (AFAIK) of $60billion SGD per annum, the medifund bill of $100 million p.a. is quite affordable, thus there is no reason to make medishield compulsory or to raiseremiums excessively, the aged who have property can be assisted with reverse mortgage schemes and those who have less than 20% equity in a HDB 4room/less property should qualify for medifund help, understand so far?

Sigh. Pray tell, how does Medishield bill have to do with Medifund bill? Answer the link correctly, then see just how stupid your argument is can?


And frankly, with each post you make in this thread, it just shows how correct Grandpa Lee perception of Singaporeans are.

 

[Inix]

Its damn interesting to be labeled a communist when I would prolly suffer less tax under communism than most people here.

Under a capitalist regime, I already pay more direct and indirect taxes than 90% of the populace right now. I don't mind it that way, and I don't mind paying even more as long as other people get better social services.

Seriously speaking, Medishield Life does not really impact me at all. It is not going to help me under almost any circumstance. I still want it because it is the right thing to do. despite it going to cost my government, and by extension, me as a taxpayer, more.

Not everything that is valuable can be valued. Not everything that can be valued is valuable. I deem human life as valuable. So doing my social part for the country is the right thing to do.

 

[weerock]

Jackpot

All these shield shield shield thingy (from everywhere) can make one think that falling victim to accidents is like hitting a jackpot

 

[victornsy]

Look regardless of how we can debate about how Singapore should do this insurance thingy ... looking at our neighbor Malaysia ... going to a government run hospital cost you 1 RM and going for a dentist in the same establishment 1 RM ... THAT IS AFFORDABLE to everyone. Damn even the beggar can afford medical care in Malaysia. Yes sure maybe the quality isn't that great but it's there. In Singapore, good luck if you fall ill and has no money or insurance or you are too old to be insured ... it's like the government is saying ... hey you are too old and poor time to die.

We are not a poor country. Singapore is like a first class in everything but really sucks when it comes to affordable health care.

Progress huh? You come to think about progress? Isn't progress about doing more with less? Isn't progress about becoming efficient and costing less. Looks like the health care industry is not progressive. The insurance scheme and the medical community is just out there to turn on your wallet like a vampire they are just GREEDY *******s. So tell me when you are poor and old would you not rather be a Malaysian who could just do with 1 RM medical fee vs the Singaporean who probably die because he is poor.

You see the problem. The government is all talk and have zero compassion for the people. They pretend every inch of the way and does so little for the nation's aging population and burden their strinking Singaporean headcount .... that pays them so well. Now you know why they wanna import foreigners. Unfortunately, the silver spoons "well to do" are ignoramus and will be so forever, they don't know poverty and will act like they know all things.

 

[cherry6]

Calculation: Medishield-life is a Swindle of Singaporean Poor

Calculation: Medishield-life is a Swindle of Singaporean Poor.

Rich Singaporeans claim 2.03786x more then middle class, what more the poor?

According to MOH stats, "Nine per cent of full rider policyholders made claims in 2016, compared to 7 per cent of those without riders"

"According to MOH, the average bill claimed by a full rider policyholder cost S$9,093 in 2016, about 58.5 per cent higher than that of an average IP holder (S$5,738). Patients with riders were more likely to visit private hospitals than those without riders, contributing to a bulk of this differential. "

Calculation:
Since hospitalization claims rate for rider holder is 9% as opposed to 7% for non-rider holders and also 1.585X more for rider holders,
Increase payout value to rider holders= 9/7 X 1.585= 2.03786 times that of average IP holders.

Since private insurers selling IP plans make claims from (and basic premium payments) to MOH wrt medishield-life, it can be said that those with full riders make in excess of 2X claims from the common medishield-life insurance pool.

Pls note that the actual multiple may actually be even higher than 2.03786 times, since MOH own definition of the 'average IP' holder is likely to also include BOTH partial and full rider holders, the latter of whom make up 30% of the IP pool which in itself is constituted by the more wealthy 68% of Singaporeans.

It was also reported that poorer Singaporeans are unable to receive proper public healthcare cancer treatments because even the public transport costs to and from hospital may turn out to be a hindrance in itself.

It is also noted that the MOH is subsidising many wealthy Singaporeans indiscriminately just based on their declared household address and income levels even though by the fact that these Singaporeans can afford not just IP plans or worse, even very expensive full rider add-on plans, remains prima facie evidence that (MOH is squandering state funds to buy votes given that) by their expensive taste for expensive insurance products, these same wealthy folks are indeed very well to do.

In its inception, MOH explained the huge jump in compulsory medishield-life premiums over the old optional medishield plans by using 'prefunding' (with the option of future premium discounts and refunds) as the reason why basic medishield-life premiums for the young increased so much. Yet, short of doing IP plan insurance companies a business favour and helping them mediate amongst themselves an agreement to cease the sale of loss making full rider for medishield-life IP plans (and coincidentally reducing the population of (double value claims) full rider holders in the process), MOH is doing precious little independently to lead in reducing the raw deal that medishield-life especially gives to the poor ('prefunding') and the SQUANDERING OF STATE FUNDS, aka increase in GST. Perhaps, for a start, all basic medishield-life subsidies to anybody with an IP rider should be REMOVED with immediate effect and those with IPs, 1year later. Only those on BASIC medishield-life compulsory insurance (and no other hospitalization insurance plans) can qualify for medishield-life premium subsidies of any form.

In short, medishield-life and its subsidy structure is a raw deal for poorer Singaporeans and a big extravagance of government funds with the consequence that GST has to be unnecessarily raised for all.