Singapore’s Health Minister Mr Khaw Boon Wan is full of praise
of Singapore’s healthcare system as he tried to promote it as a
model for other countries to emulate at the “Healthcare in Asia”
conference.
Sharing the Singapore experience, he said that keeping politics
out of healthcare and minimizing market distortions is the key to
create a “sustainable” healthcare system in Singapore.
“The more politicians do not speak the truth…for example,
‘healthcare is free, vote for me, I will give you free
medicine’……(By saying this), you distort the market because you do
not allow facts and rational thinking to surface,” he was
quoted as saying in Channel News Asia.
Vijay Vaitheeswaran, health correspondent from the The Economist
commented on Singapore:
“The thing to remember about Singapore is that it has an
extraordinary value conscious health system with a relatively low
spending per GDP and a high contribution by the
individual.”
Though Singapore is the second richest country in Asia after
Japan and its leaders are the highest paid in the entire world,
Singaporeans enjoy few social welfare benefits compared to citizens
in other first world countries.
Singapore’s total healthcare spending is a
miserable less than four per cent of its GDP, which is a
relatively low figure compared to other countries while the state
can afford to lose billions of dollars of national reserves in
failed overseas investments via its two sovereign wealth funds.
The government has constantly maintained that the public
healthcare system is “heavily subsidized” in Singapore.
There is a common saying among Singaporeans – “one can afford to
die, but not fall sick in Singapore.”
A single hospital admission, a few days’ stay in the ICU or a
major operation in a public hospital will suffice to wipe out the
Medisave and savings of some Singaporeans.
With healthcare costs going up, Mr Khaw had encouraged
Singaporeans to send their elderly parents to nursing homes in
Johor if they cannot afford nursing care here.
His remarks sparked a massive outcry among Singaporeans and he
eventually backed down, claiming that he was “misquoted” by the
media.
Mr Khaw should not be too concerned about politics being mixed
with healthcare in Singapore as there is hardly any politics here
to speak of.
There are only two opposition MPs in the Singapore parliament.
His party controls 82 out of 84 seats in Parliament and can pass
any bills as and when it wishes too.
Perhaps Mr Khaw should remind his audience that Singapore is
able to maintain such an “extraordinary value conscious health
system” for so long precisely because there is no opposition to
hold the PAP to task for spending so little on healthcare in
Parliament.
TR March 30, 2010
