What has Khaw Boon Wan done for citizens' health care ?
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Really, what has Minister Khaw Boon Wan done ? Has he done something to alleviate people's suffering or is he taking people's retirement funds in advance to pay for their medical expenses which should have been borne by way of services of the government to the people through their own contributions to the economy and all the direct and indirect taxes paid.
All we are seeing is more devious method of charging people like being done by HDB or URA, making obscene profits on lands by using taxpayers' monies to acquire lands and infrastructure at little or no costs but through setting up privatized GLCs it is charging for services at full market prices which they still claim to be not enough to pay for costs due to creative accounting.
Citizens through direct, GST, and indirect taxes (levies, fees, COE, ERP, Development Charges, Stamp Duties) are already over-paying the government.
Yet when it comes to providing medical services needed land costs, infrastructure costs are added onto the bill and a false claim of subsidy is stated in the bill as if government has bought lands and infrastructures with their own monies from foreign loans or someone else.
This kind of taxing and recovering all costs against the citizens through creative accounting has caused big problems to the whole economy driving up business costs and rentals and making the economy uncompetitive.
They then set up all kinds of privatized GLCs and hospitals and make them operate on cost-centre basis without using direct or indirect taxes to return services to the people for their contributions.
Naturally citizens have to struggle to pay double all the time one tax to government and another to their GLCs. Citizens are being made to pay all over again because government has made these GLCs take over people's assets which then have to recover costs all over again.
What Khaw has done is merely using another creative accounting no different from the old NKF in denying use of people's monies for the original intended purpose but to dump all the medical costs on the taxpayers in advance onto their own CPF retirement savings and called such schemes medishield, medisave and whatnot so that at the end the government could collect more and more taxes and yet does not have to pay for people's medical costs.
But so much fanfare was made by him that he has achieved some kinds of medical breakthrough as if government is paying all these costs.
It is still the same old story he is telling that there is no welfare, no free lunch as Mah Boh Tan has been telling the people though government continues to horde people's taxes and double-charge people on lands and infrastructure.
If Khaw is now to start a means-testing he is obviously not only witholding taxes intended to be spent to pay for people's medical needs he will be further charging people by pushing more people away from relevant class "C" to higher-paying classes in order to make more monies as in the first place by medishield and medisave he has already succeeded in dumping medical costs against people's retirement funds.
It will be rubbing salts into injury (deprivations of services to people they deserve from their own taxes paid) if he goes ahead to use means tests to make more monies for the government. -
I remember there is a minister keen on forming a football team to go for
2010 world cup n it is announced when Korea is hosting the world cup.
It seemed this happened when Spore is in a recession n tv reporters asked many locals about their feeling for Spore to go to world cup. They sounded pessimitic cause to them it did not matter as long as they can keep their work n nothing else matter. -
he seems to shine after the former Health Minister screwed up during SARs period
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This is the problem - we have too many ministers who talk about their first-class or world-class visions or plans without the ultimate credibility or implementation ability and they still think that they are the talents deserving the highest pays, higher than those ministers in Switzerland and Denmark who practise practical broad-based knowledge applications among citizens winning numerous Nobel prizes and producing world beating products that increase their ordinary citizens' wages.Originally posted by will4:I remember there is a minister keen on forming a football team to go for
2010 world cup n it is announced when Korea is hosting the world cup.
It seemed this happened when Spore is in a recession n tv reporters asked many locals about their feeling for Spore to go to world cup. They sounded pessimitic cause to them it did not matter as long as they can keep their work n nothing else matter.
The minister who frequently talked about world-class football was the one who also talked about providing affordable public housing and no free lunch but nowadays he carefully avoided talking about free lunches after he got his own million-dollar pay increases and so many free lunches.
It is plain hypocrisy these ministers are governing with so many empty boasts about making public housing affordable and when exposed as profiteering by creative accounting they quickly went into hiding. -
Except for the means testing proposal, slight liberalisation of the medisave and pathetic revamp of the medishield, I'm not sure how much he has really done.
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deducting more $$$ from mdeisave account for some useless medical insurance scheme
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forcing the self employ to join the medishield. so that his own ideology would work. once again, the PAP has to force singaporean wo dare to disagree by implementing laws!!!
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cmon pple...wake up...they are just scholars who has lost touch with the reality....scholars r just smart in making policies but they cant relate to real life....thats the biggest drawback of sg.
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can't say for sure if he's done good so far but at least he tries.....this alone is a far improvement over the previous guy lim hng kiang who once said it was too bad for a baby who had incurred more than half a million bucks in bill for treatment and that's the way things were....
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MOH ready to reveal details on revamped ElderShield within weeks
Let's hope they bring it out for discussion before implementation otherwise it going to be from one useless insurance to another. For between $150 - S190 per year, don't introduce another useless insurance that does not benefit the people other than the insurance companies.
By May Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 26 May 2007 1819 hrs
SINGAPORE: Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan has said he will reveal details of the revamped ElderShield before the end of next month, while hinting that a total of three insurers may offer the scheme.
Currently, only two companies provide ElderShield, a severe disability insurance scheme to help Singaporeans pay for long-term care especially during old age.
The reformed scheme is set to be implemented end-September.
Mr Khaw was speaking at a dialogue session with some 300 grassroots leaders to get public feedback on the proposed ElderShield changes.
One request that often came up during Saturday's session was to shorten the 90-day deferment.
Currently, a policy holder has to wait 90 days after being certified as disabled before he could receive the ElderShield payout.
This is to minimise fraud.
Mr Khaw said: "We can take a look to see if 90 days are overly long. But, I think, in practice the insurers have been flexible case by case. They do approve cases well within 90 days, shorter than 90 days."
One proposed change to ElderShield is to increase the monthly payout for policy-holders from $300 to $400 over five years.
Other proposed changes are extending the payout period to six years and allowing people to buy add-on schemes for more coverage.
As of end last year, about 750,000 people have ElderShield policies offered by NTUC Income and Great Eastern Life.
The two existing insurers as well as Aviva have thrown in their bids to be providers.
Mr Khaw said: "There are some details to be tidied up but I think within a few weeks, I should be able to settle the exact form of what the reform will look like and also to announce the result of the tender. We have two insurers at the moment for ElderShield and I think a third insurer is likely to crop up with this reform. Three insurers are not bad."
The Minister also said that after reforming the ElderShield, he wants to work with insurance companies to make their contracts easier to understand.
Insurance contracts, he said, should be written in simple languages so that people will know what they are buying and the kind of benefits they will get.
Mr Khaw said he would work on this in the second half of this year. - CNA/ir
People's opinion and requirement should be sought as the "Ministries" are already out of touch with the ground.
In the meantime, please further explain the following and its benefits as it is drawing the money from people's medical saving.
1. Medisave
2. MediSheld
3. MediFund
4. ElderShield
5. whatever else there is as all above are either complusory or "OPT OUT" necessary. -
It seemed the idea of creating a local football team to enter the world cup has been quiet already n it is a failure from the start.Originally posted by robertteh:This is the problem - we have too many ministers who talk about their first-class or world-class visions or plans without the ultimate credibility or implementation ability and they still think that they are the talents deserving the highest pays, higher than those ministers in Switzerland and Denmark who practise practical broad-based knowledge applications among citizens winning numerous Nobel prizes and producing world beating products that increase their ordinary citizens' wages.
The minister who frequently talked about world-class football was the one who also talked about providing affordable public housing and no free lunch but nowadays he carefully avoided talking about free lunches after he got his own million-dollar pay increases and so many free lunches.
It is plain hypocrisy these ministers are governing with so many empty boasts about making public housing affordable and when exposed as profiteering by creative accounting they quickly went into hiding. -
If it is so easy to create a world-class football team, Manchestor United or Liverpool or AC Milan would be able to tell the world how they did it.Originally posted by will4:It seemed the idea of creating a local football team to enter the world cup has been quiet already n it is a failure from the start.
MU might be able to buy good players and groom new ones and pay multi-millions every season to refresh and revitalize their teams.
But do you think their manager/coach will just boast like our Ministers that they know everything and would know what need to be done to get there. Monies alone cannot buy a team of such world-class ability.
There are more than employing a few football talents or shouting orders to the players in training. The managers/coaches must have more than a few tricks in order to realize such a dream.
To begin it is necessary to create a football sporting environment to train up feeders to the team and make them compete on national and international games.
There must be a lot slew of plans to build up the whole environment to support football.
A few years ago, I posted my suggestions to Singapore Sports Council to tell them that they will need to adopt certain daily process-management training routines to consistently build up stamina, passing skills, teamwork and coordination etc as core activities which will be passed daily.
There was no reply. So do our ministers have much ideas what they are talking about when they claim to have talents to build up world-class this or that.
What do they do - did they claim an all-embracing environment, culture and incentives and motivations among all to succeed. -
It seemed those local very paranoid when some other locals compared to Spore to other countries Taiwan, HK or Korea.Originally posted by robertteh:If it is so easy to create a world-class football team, Manchestor United or Liverpool or AC Milan would be able to tell the world how they did it.
MU might be able to buy good players and groom new ones and pay multi-millions every season to refresh and revitalize their teams.
But do you think their manager/coach will just boast like our Ministers that they know everything and would know what need to be done to get there. Monies alone cannot buy a team of such world-class ability.
There are more than employing a few football talents or shouting orders to the players in training. The managers/coaches must have more than a few tricks in order to realize such a dream.
To begin it is necessary to create a football sporting environment to train up feeders to the team and make them compete on national and international games.
There must be a lot slew of plans to build up the whole environment to support football.
A few years ago, I posted my suggestions to Singapore Sports Council to tell them that they will need to adopt certain daily process-management training routines to consistently build up stamina, passing skills, teamwork and coordination etc as core activities which will be passed daily.
There was no reply. So do our ministers have much ideas what they are talking about when they claim to have talents to build up world-class this or that.
What do they do - did they claim an all-embracing environment, culture and incentives and motivations among all to succeed.
They seemed speechless when local complained how good these countries compared to Spore. -
That's not even a relevant comparison - even if this regime had the appeal and lure of the Man Utds, AC Milans or Real Madrids of this world, that still wouldn't hold.Originally posted by robertteh:If it is so easy to create a world-class football team, Manchestor United or Liverpool or AC Milan would be able to tell the world how they did it.
MU might be able to buy good players and groom new ones and pay multi-millions every season to refresh and revitalize their teams.
National teams are not eligible to "buy" players. Your options, in essence, are limited to the best of the pool you've got. FIFA, who should be credited for having been smart enough to see through the dirty policies of rich nations potentially paying talents for them to be naturalised as citizens, through implementing a policy which forbids any player from representing a second country once he has done so for one. Bearing this in mind, it just makes the whole fascist proposition of Goal2010 so much more ludicrous... -
Locals have been brought up in an environment where success if equated to passing examination and getting a good job.Originally posted by will4:It seemed those local very paranoid when some other locals compared to Spore to other countries Taiwan, HK or Korea.
They seemed speechless when local complained how good these countries compared to Spore.
So over time, although doing business for survival through being entrepreneurial and creative in knowledge applications may be more important these areas of middle management excellence are being neglected.
We keep hearing government promoting academic excellence and not practical knowledge applications.
To them only those who are in possessions of grade-As in our colleges are the talents and those who create some new products or technology applications are not getting much support.
Yet the practical knowledge applications by all in every field can lead to job creation and while Korea and Taiwan have encouraged their citizens to set up shops and going into business our ministers would rather approach overseas investors and foreigners than do something to help their citizens to apply knowledge or start up a business.
When Koreans and Taiwanese talk about their technology applications and business start-ups and are coming up with new products needed by the world we have nothing much to offer in this area but we are very quick to show off our grades and claim that our government services are world class. -
That's why I want to see a change in the education system. The image that the system is projecting is horrendous and if the beans are spilled out, I can guarantee you there will be an end to this all.Originally posted by curryman:cmon pple...wake up...they are just scholars who has lost touch with the reality....scholars r just smart in making policies but they cant relate to real life....thats the biggest drawback of sg.
The teachers are so rigid and "busy", they don't even have the time to cane a few pupils' bloody buttocks over a vandalism case. -
they work for the govt, not the people.
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He is a hopless minister and a ball carrier of LKY.
Initially,h said he would like to reduce the health insurance policies deductible by increased slighly the preminum and expand the policy coverage,but he increased the policy excesses with those useless extended coverages tried to cheat the layman of Sillypore.Worst still! creates all the Shti terms and conditions of the policies to restrict the payout of the valid claims.
Malaysia used to change their policies as and when they like,our learnedl Minister from Malaysia has also practised the same tactic.
We are totally disappointed with these S$ faced ministers and I had given up my citizenship of Spore and migrate to TW this month. -
I remember during the debate on ministerial salary rise, it seemed many citic n to sweeten the situation, the govt ammounced there will be a donation toOriginally posted by robertteh:This is the problem - we have too many ministers who talk about their first-class or world-class visions or plans without the ultimate credibility or implementation ability and they still think that they are the talents deserving the highest pays, higher than those ministers in Switzerland and Denmark who practise practical broad-based knowledge applications among citizens winning numerous Nobel prizes and producing world beating products that increase their ordinary citizens' wages.
The minister who frequently talked about world-class football was the one who also talked about providing affordable public housing and no free lunch but nowadays he carefully avoided talking about free lunches after he got his own million-dollar pay increases and so many free lunches.
It is plain hypocrisy these ministers are governing with so many empty boasts about making public housing affordable and when exposed as profiteering by creative accounting they quickly went into hiding.
charity for an salary increase for the minister in the next five years. -
What he has done, and will continure to do, is just follow orders from the top.Originally posted by robertteh:Really, what has Minister Khaw Boon Wan done ? Has he done something to alleviate people's suffering or is he taking people's retirement funds in advance to pay for their medical expenses which should have been borne by way of services of the government to the people through their own contributions to the economy and all the direct and indirect taxes paid.
All we are seeing is more devious method of charging people like being done by HDB or URA, making obscene profits on lands by using taxpayers' monies to acquire lands and infrastructure at little or no costs but through setting up privatized GLCs it is charging for services at full market prices which they still claim to be not enough to pay for costs due to creative accounting.
Citizens through direct, GST, and indirect taxes (levies, fees, COE, ERP, Development Charges, Stamp Duties) are already over-paying the government.
Yet when it comes to providing medical services needed land costs, infrastructure costs are added onto the bill and a false claim of subsidy is stated in the bill as if government has bought lands and infrastructures with their own monies from foreign loans or someone else.
This kind of taxing and recovering all costs against the citizens through creative accounting has caused big problems to the whole economy driving up business costs and rentals and making the economy uncompetitive.
They then set up all kinds of privatized GLCs and hospitals and make them operate on cost-centre basis without using direct or indirect taxes to return services to the people for their contributions.
Naturally citizens have to struggle to pay double all the time one tax to government and another to their GLCs. Citizens are being made to pay all over again because government has made these GLCs take over people's assets which then have to recover costs all over again.
What Khaw has done is merely using another creative accounting no different from the old NKF in denying use of people's monies for the original intended purpose but to dump all the medical costs on the taxpayers in advance onto their own CPF retirement savings and called such schemes medishield, medisave and whatnot so that at the end the government could collect more and more taxes and yet does not have to pay for people's medical costs.
But so much fanfare was made by him that he has achieved some kinds of medical breakthrough as if government is paying all these costs.
It is still the same old story he is telling that there is no welfare, no free lunch as Mah Boh Tan has been telling the people though government continues to horde people's taxes and double-charge people on lands and infrastructure.
If Khaw is now to start a means-testing he is obviously not only witholding taxes intended to be spent to pay for people's medical needs he will be further charging people by pushing more people away from relevant class "C" to higher-paying classes in order to make more monies as in the first place by medishield and medisave he has already succeeded in dumping medical costs against people's retirement funds.
It will be rubbing salts into injury (deprivations of services to people they deserve from their own taxes paid) if he goes ahead to use means tests to make more monies for the government.
That's all there is.
Any plans, any bright ideas from our gov., you can bet your last dollar is to charge more and more...
What's the farking use of Medisave when it can mostly scratch the furface of medical bills? And surgeries such as those to save a person's eyesight is considered COSMETICS???? They maybe should substitute the word COSMETICS with EXPENSIVE...that's why cannot claim...
Lame as hell as ever...Hub this Hub that and healthcare is full of screw-ups and shortcomings!!
NNB... hopeless case! -
What the farking minister he is!
Instead of building more hospitals and increasing the intake of medical students,he puts the blame on the patients who refused to be discharged,whoelse in Spore wants to stay in hospital except a small number of shti who has some special reasons !!!In order to save a few millions to produce more medical students,he imported the shti "Docs" from PRC and India to create all kind of problems in Public Hospitals.
All public hospitals in Spore are now full house and Docs are being stretched to the limit,if there is something like Sars happened here, good luck to all Sillyporeans!!!! -
Indeed...what abt the wait time in the specialist clinic...
Early this yr, I was referred by the polyclinic to a specialist in SGH and to take a bloodtest with the suspicion of having tummy cancer....
My appointment was scheduled for > 6 mths later.......
Say if i have early stage cancer during poly clinic checkup and by the appointment time, I would have late stage or if not dead already.. -
There's the idiocy of the healthcare system; lauded as World Class, but functions like some third world country's FREE clinic...Originally posted by Mid9Sun:Indeed...what abt the wait time in the specialist clinic...
Early this yr, I was referred by the polyclinic to a specialist in SGH and to take a bloodtest with the suspicion of having tummy cancer....
My appointment was scheduled for > 6 mths later.......
Say if i have early stage cancer during poly clinic checkup and by the appointment time, I would have late stage or if not dead already..
Like I've said; the gov rather sits on the mountain of the people's money, then hire enough doctors for the hospitals they setup!! -
This is the reason why we had migrated to overseas,we dont trust the Ministers anymore in Spore,they r the $ making machine for themselves.Originally posted by Mid9Sun:Indeed...what abt the wait time in the specialist clinic...
Early this yr, I was referred by the polyclinic to a specialist in SGH and to take a bloodtest with the suspicion of having tummy cancer....
My appointment was scheduled for > 6 mths later.......
Say if i have early stage cancer during poly clinic checkup and by the appointment time, I would have late stage or if not dead already.. -
So sad when you hear people saying it is cheaper to die than to go to the hospital for treatment in Singapore.
Haiz.