All newborn Singaporeans to be offered MediShield coverage from
Dec
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 27 October 2007 2016
hrs
SINGAPORE : From December, all newborn Singaporeans and Permanent
Residents will be offered MediShield coverage.
The Health Ministry will also facilitate coverage for Singaporean
and Permanent Resident (PR) youths from the middle of next
year.
Sulaiman Azim is a healthy 11-year-old.
But when he was younger, he was often sick and was hospitalised
three times - once for pneumonia and twice for viral
infection.
The first in-patient episode when he was just 9 months old, left
his parents with a hefty S$17,000 bill.
Without any insurance coverage, they had to foot the cost
themselves.
Haslina Abdul Majeed, Sulaiman's mom, says: "We had no choice but
to use S$10,000 of our savings to pay for the hospital bills and
S$7,000 was deducted from our Medisave account. Of course it was
difficult because we didn't think that he would be in hospital for
25 days. But we had no choice at that time because due to the
urgency of his case, we had to admit him to a private hospital
instead of a government hospital."
Madam Haslina learnt from her experience and soon insured her son
Sulaiman.
She says: "After the first hospitalisation episode, he was
hospitalised again when he was 3 and 5 years old. But for those
hospitalisation stays, when the bills came up to S$5,000 and
S$7,000 respectively, we did not have to fork out cash because they
were fully covered by the insurance. I would urge all parents to
buy insurance for their children at the point they were born.
"This is because we really don't know what's going to happen - are
they going to fall sick along the way, things like that. So when
the government came up with the initiative of encouraging or even
ensuring that all kids are covered when they were born, I thought
it was a good move. I wish that it had started a long time ago when
my first child was born."
Madam Haslina has since also insured her two other children from
birth.
To save parents such grief, the government will now offer
MediShield coverage to children born from December this year.
This will be extended to all children of Permanent Residents.
Those attending Primary One next year will also be offered
coverage.
This exercise will be repeated for each batch of Primary One pupils
over the next six years - 2009 to 2014.
Students in secondary schools and beyond will be offered coverage
starting May 1st.
The Health Ministry says that about half of youths below the age of
20 years are not covered by MediShield.
Although it hopes to up this number with the latest move, parents
who want their children to opt out of the scheme can do so.
For newborns and youths, premium is at S$30 per year and will be
deducted from the father's Medisave account.
If there are insufficient funds, then it will be deducted from the
mother's Medisave account.
Currently about 75 percent of Singaporeans and PRs are covered by
MediShield.
With children covered, this number will go up to 85 per cent.
The Ministry says early MediShield coverage will help meet medical
expenses and lift the financial burden of families.
It is also beneficial, as it is usually difficult to get subsequent
insurance coverage once a person develops an illness in his youth.
- CNA/ch