Social Welfare Health costs
-
Many here believe that our govt hoards money or they are all very rich. The truth is that whatever that is in our treasury is OUR money. It composes of our CPF savings as well as our Nation's tax revenues, including budgets surpluses, due to conservative spending. The govt is not rich. They are only caretakers of our money. And as such, they have to be very very careful with it.
Many want more welfare and social action, including giving handouts from our budget surpluses and $300billion (S$414.3billion) reserves.
It seems alot of money, but just take a lot on some of the examples on providing health care costs alone.
Singapore's top killer is Cancer. At least 26% of the population around 3.5million contracts it. That means 910,000 citizens. To cure cancer, it would cost around $300,000 and rising for one patient. That would mean S$273 billion set aside just to cure our citizens of cancer, leaving only S$141 billion, even though not all will need medical attention at the same time, of course!
Heart disease is the second greatest killer in Singapore. The usual fee is around S$50,000 per citizen = another $45 billion set aside to help our citizens at 80% subsidy.
Just these 2 killers alone will cost our country S$318 billion. What about education, government, military, and other social costs? And not to mention a significant portion of it is CPF to be returned to citizens?
Point is - can we afford to provide more social welfare, espacially in medical aid, costs which are outside of our nation's control, without incurring more tax revenues such as GST, more so on our young?
Or should we invest our reserves in a careful manner so that it may bring long term returns on investments?
As these are our monies, would you dare trust just any joker who fights for 'freedom of speech', distorts reality, spreads anarchy to handle and run our funds?
Do think, before one accuses the govt of not caring enough. The govt has no money. It is our money that will be prudently used. If everyone asks for handouts, then where will the money come from, other than from each of us who are slotting hard together, contributing to make Singapore a better place?
Disclaimer. The figures are not precise, but just in general only. For exact and precise figures, please go to the relevant department of statistics for it. This post is written simply and for general consumption.
-
"S$273 billion set aside just to cure our citizens of cancer" and you expect us to believe?
Two points
1) If figure not precise, why use them?
2) Can you give us the source of your information. -
Heart Diseases:
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~straj/articles/Second%20biggest%20killer%20in%20Singapore.htm
Cancer:
(The Straits Times, 9 Dec 2004)
THE number of people killed by cancer has been climbing steadily in Singapore.
In the five years from 1968 to 1972, it caused 15 per cent of deaths. And last year, it accounted for 26 per cent of deaths.
Between 1998 and 2002, 38,447 people were diagnosed with some type of cancer, while 20,289 died of the disease.
Population:-
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/demo.html
Principal causes of death and MOH statistics:-
http://www.moh.gov.sg/mohcorp/statistics.aspx?id=5526
Look, if anyone here can suggest anyone, from opposition or the ruling party that he can provide
-Free health care or even lower costs healthcare from cradle to grave,
-Best education
-free road
-$3000 a month for social welfare per person,
-No tax from cars or ERP
-full subsidies for housing and oil,
-etc,
WITHOUT GST OR more taxes on me, please let me know. I will most certainly vote for him!
Edit:- Forgot to add - He must also accept no salary or just $3,000 a month as well for his service.
-
Originally posted by 00011000:
"S$273 billion set aside just to cure our citizens of cancer" and you expect us to believe?
Two points
1) If figure not precise, why use them?
2) Can you give us the source of your information.As mentioned, the S$273 billion will not be used at the same minute, as not all current citizens will be diagnosed with cancer the same second. The money will for that purpose will be depleted and will be gradual over time.
I do expect you to believe anything. It is best for you to find the truth for yourself, as this is a forum and i am not from MOH. I will not force you to believe in anything that you are not prepared to accept. This post is only for you and others to consider only.
-
PAP causes cancer. SDP finds the cure.
-
Originally posted by googoomuck:
PAP causes cancer. SDP finds the cure.
Can you give the source of this information?
-
Maybe the billions of dollars in healthcare also include lunch seminars and 1st class flight tickets for 1st class doctors and professors who are highly Elite and can cure cancer with their golden taps.
With so many graduates from our nursing school? i wonder why they still pay lower salaries to nurses of other countries?
I suppose the billions of dollars are overrating the Healthcare costs. Definitely it cannot be more expensive than the average petrol costs.
-
PAP policies cause stress and stress weakens the immune system and allow tumours to grow.
If SDP can develop policies on employment (to tackle joblessness) and social welfare, people can have healthier and happier lives and that reduce the chances of having cancer.
A small fraction of the $273m can be use to find ways to eradicate cancer, leaving a huge part of our reserves be used to plan for the betterment of the people.
-
Who voted them in?
-
... words.. they only have WORDS... and FIGURES...
... but where are the ACTIONS? And I don't mean lame actions just for the records...
... someone said; "Don't ask what PAP can do for us, but ask what we can do for PAP"..
... let me say that I know, what WE can all do TO them - VOTE THEM OUT!!!
-
$300 Billion reserves ?
$273 Billion for cancer patients ?
$45 Billion to help heart patients ?
Surely we can trust Gazelle for his impressive numbers that count in Billions - when he will believe that the China-Singapore Trade is worth $27 Billion - ''BOTH WAYS'' ?
$27 rubbish bin ?
That will be a nice home for a DeerHunter out to shoot a Gazelle with a 'point blank' gun that only shoot at 'blank points'.
-
Originally posted by OH-FF:
Maybe the billions of dollars in healthcare also include lunch seminars and 1st class flight tickets for 1st class doctors and professors who are highly Elite and can cure cancer with their golden taps.
With so many graduates from our nursing school? i wonder why they still pay lower salaries to nurses of other countries?
I suppose the billions of dollars are overrating the Healthcare costs. Definitely it cannot be more expensive than the average petrol costs.
They pay lower salaries to nurses from other countries because it cuts down on healthcare costs. There is a huge world wide shortage of nurses to the point where the poorer african countries have appealed to WHO not to let the richer developed nations take their own nurses.
Qualified graduates from the polytechnics don't earn as much as the other developed nations. Seriously - the salary cannot be even compared without them considering running out.
The only reason why I think they have a bachelor of nursing course now is because they found out that other countries like Australia and UK are hijacking Singaporean trained nurses easily off their workforce. How? When the bachelor of nursing in Singapore was non-existent , nurses used to go overseas to acquire the degree and on the way the registration in the respective Australian states (which made it easier for migration) or UK to work part time or as a casual.
Compared to the crap hours , salaries, working etiquette (where a doctor is obeyed without questions) and patient workloads that Singapore have, Australia is heavenly. They are trying to make the leakage of nurses smaller by superficially glorifying it . That is my personal view .
The higher cost of medical care cannot be negated easilywhen you are talking about upgrading direct patient care personnel (dr/nurses/PT/OT) in the latest medical breakthrough or equipment.
However I think there can be savings made by cutting off the bureacratic ranks . Singapore doesn't even need separate groups running the hospitals on the north, south, east , west because Singapore is too small . One centralised authority will be able do it .
Furthermore , I have the priviledge of working overseas and I noted what some healthcare bodies do to generate income innovatively - they come up with some kick arse application which is good ,test it in some hospitals,debug it improve it to a commercial standard and they sell it to the private sector , other states or EVEN OTHER COUNTRIES- the monies come back to them for use. They do the majority of the money dumping into R&D again and it generates an income continually which is interesting.
-
Originally posted by Atobe:
$300 Billion reserves ?
$273 Billion for cancer patients ?
$45 Billion to help heart patients ?
Surely we can trust Gazelle for his impressive numbers that count in Billions - when he will believe that the China-Singapore Trade is worth $27 Billion - ''BOTH WAYS'' ?
$27 rubbish bin ?
That will be a nice home for a DeerHunter out to shoot a Gazelle with a 'point blank' gun that only shoot at 'blank points'.
I dont expect a fool like you to know how to calculate nor have the mental capacity to participate in threads such as these other than to spew your rubbish, as you had proven in your latest post.
Shoo, hide back in your bin and play with your thrash.
-
oh hay gazelle!
I don't think the government is so open about how much it spends in detail. However I would appreciate any sources that substantiate your calculations because the equations are too simplistic. Did you remember to include casemix in? Different drgs and procedural codes have different costing. I would love to check on which drg or ICD9/10 codes you based your calculations on.
-
Originally posted by googoomuck:
PAP policies cause stress and stress weakens the immune system and allow tumours to grow.
If SDP can develop policies on employment (to tackle joblessness) and social welfare, people can have healthier and happier lives and that reduce the chances of having cancer.
A small fraction of the $273m can be use to find ways to eradicate cancer, leaving a huge part of our reserves be used to plan for the betterment of the people.
I would have to strongly disagree with your prognosis on PAP causing cancer, but i agree with you that a small fraction of our reserves can be used to find ways to eradicate cancer and a whole host of diseases affecting mankind.Thus the expenditure for advertising to inform the general public to keep healthy, as well as research grants for EDB's A star teams to come out with better cures, and the setting up of a bio-tech hub in our country. Such policies are in the hope that we would be the first to gain economically as well as health wise.
To fymk:-
My calculations are not based on casemix or whatever you would determine as 'prognositically' correct in the application of healthcare for patients.
My calculations for costing expenditure is based on average real bill size most patients would spend based on current health knowledge applications. It is kept simplistic so that all, and not just those in elite circles, may be aware of the figures we are talking about.
And i am not gazelle.
-
Much as I really want to suspect Deerhunter is Gazelle, there are quite some factors that show that he's not..., though I might still be wrong...
For one, the language is really much better, though I would still say this Deerhunter is still rude for a newbie poster.
It seems that every new poster who started off from Speaker's Corner will be suspected as Gazelle because of his irritating behaviour and many clones, and it definitely takes quite a while for people to believe he's not. Same thing happened for redDust, although we all know he's a different person now.
-
You can't have separate ways of costing healthcare. You have to use the prescribed way of estimating healthcare costs. Your calculation will suit a person on the street trying to estimate their individual bill.
It would not estimate the cost on the healthcare system. Plus you have to factor in who gets what subsidy. I need you to account for average number of those with a particular disease who use C class or B class and who uses private beds as well. Until you can do that , you cannot argue your calculations - it will be susceptible to criticism with no defence at all. It might either overestimate and stretch the bill that you are quoting OR underestimate the true cost of it all. At the very most , it is a very simplistic and naive way of estimating healthcare costs.
I don't recall a singular average bill cited on healthcare cost in MOH website - I only see upper and lower ranges of cost . If I recall correctly, cost also varies between hospitals.
-
the bottomline.
3 million per annum.
u will never be able to justify that.
-
Originally posted by fymk:
You can't have separate ways of costing healthcare. You have to use the prescribed way of estimating healthcare costs. Your calculation will suit a person on the street trying to estimate their individual bill.
It would not estimate the cost on the healthcare system. Plus you have to factor in who gets what subsidy. I need you to account for average number of those with a particular disease who use C class or B class and who uses private beds as well. Until you can do that , you cannot argue your calculations - it will be susceptible to criticism with no defence at all. It might either overestimate and stretch the bill that you are quoting OR underestimate the true cost of it all. At the very most , it is a very simplistic and naive way of estimating healthcare costs.
I don't recall a singular average bill cited on healthcare cost in MOH website - I only see upper and lower ranges of cost . If I recall correctly, cost also varies between hospitals.
"You have to use the prescribed way of estimating healthcare costs. Your calculation will suit a person on the street trying to estimate their individual bill."You got that right. I am estimating for the person on the street, which is what most of us are, that which concerns us all, here in this forum.
However, if you want a full detailed account, i would suggest you hire and pay a proffessional fee for such reports. Otherwise, i would suggest you tone down or you present a proffessional piece yourself. Can you?
-
Originally posted by DeerHunter:
"You have to use the prescribed way of estimating healthcare costs. Your calculation will suit a person on the street trying to estimate their individual bill."You got that right. I am estimating for the person on the street, which is what most of us are, that which concerns us all, here in this forum.
However, if you want a full detailed account, i would suggest you hire and pay a proffessional fee for such reports. Otherwise, i would suggest you tone down or you present a proffessional piece yourself. Can you?
Why are you so emotional about it? Like you say , it is a forum. If you want to post an opinion which generalises everything to defend the government's apparent lack of money , be prepared to defend it.
Anyone who cares about their individual bill don't go by millions, to see the reason on why the government has no money. They just wonder why the government says that they don't have money when the government clearly can afford to pay out multimillion dollar salaries to ministers and to date , transparency and accountancy of the money they hold is not exactly crystal clear. That is my view as a common person on the street.
I am asking you to redo your calculations and present a more coherent piece because right now it is all over the place and it makes no sense to me. Anyone can go to MOH website and check the hospital estimates for a cardiac bypass .
So defend your statement. If you want to make a comment, make an educated one. Don't start sounding like one of those sheeps who just believe in what they are told. They tend to make the most dismal remarks in order to convince people that some are MORE EQUAL than others.
-
Originally posted by eagle:
Much as I really want to suspect Deerhunter is Gazelle, there are quite some factors that show that he's not..., though I might still be wrong...
For one, the language is really much better, though I would still say this Deerhunter is still rude for a newbie poster.
It seems that every new poster who started off from Speaker's Corner will be suspected as Gazelle because of his irritating behaviour and many clones, and it definitely takes quite a while for people to believe he's not. Same thing happened for redDust, although we all know he's a different person now.
He has to learn the way of how this forum works. Insulting atobe or you is not a solution but an aggravation .
Deerhunter - what are your qualifications if you claim to speak for the people and go around estimating costs to prove that the government has next to nought in its coffers?
The reason why I know about casemix and drgs is because I used to work on the data sets and costings with the people who actually created casemix (in Australia). Singapore bought the casemix system to use it to control costs. That is why I am questioning you. I also used to work in the Singaporean healthcare system and I know how the system works in Singapore. So who are you really to tell me to tone down?
Even the government will be cautious about saying that they have nothing in their coffers or cannot afford more medical subsidies. It demoralises the people. The stance the Singaporean govt has been taking differs from what you are saying. It is because they don't want people to be reliant on a welfare system and abuse the system , thereby creating a burden for the country . That has always been their stance. Not because they cannot afford it
-
Originally posted by fymk:
Why are you so emotional about it? Like you say , it is a forum. If you want to post an opinion which generalises everything to defend the government's apparent lack of money , be prepared to defend it.
Anyone who cares about their individual bill don't go by millions, to see the reason on why the government has no money. They just wonder why the government says that they don't have money when the government clearly can afford to pay out multimillion dollar salaries to ministers. That is my view as a common person on the street.
I am asking you to redo your calculations and present a more coherent piece because right now it is all over the place and it makes no sense to me. Anyone can go to MOH website and check the hospital estimates for a cardiac bypass .
So defend your statement. If you want to make a comment, make an educated one.
Emotional? No. But don't worry. I think this argument is healthy as long as it sticks to the facts, as compared to ones by some others.I agree with you that it MAY make no sense to you, for what we are dealing here is clearly a complex issue dealing with our reserves as well healthcare costs with a demographically changing aging population, with the inclusion of FT/FW/PR factor thrown in.
As you mentioned - "If you want to post an opinion which generalises everything to defend the government's apparent lack of money , be prepared to defend it."
Fine. If you dispute my figures and methodology on where the money comes from, then please show to the man on the street:-
a. Where the 80% of subsidy for a high medical bill comes from for 26% of our population affected by cancer.
b. Where the 80% of subsidy for a high medical bill comes from for 26% of our population affected by heart disease.
c. Where the additional S$17 comes from for a patient who seeks outpatient treatment in govt clinics (S$8) as opposed to private ones whom charges an average S$25
I will make it simple for you. You don't have to pull data from medical statistics. Just focus the answer to one average salaried person whom has to pay S$300,000 for his medical expenditure and tell me where his subsidy comes from.
-
Originally posted by fymk:
He has to learn the way of how this forum works. Insulting atobe or you is not a solution but an aggravation .
Deerhunter - what are your qualifications if you claim to speak for the people and go around estimating costs to prove that the government has next to nought in its coffers?
It seems you have learnt a lot on how forum works. And that it is ok for others to insult me, but my responses to their babble is aggravation. Well done.
You asking my qualifications? In this forum? And i claim to speak for the people? Did i mention that there is nothing in our govt's coffers?Are you putting words into my mouth?
Spit it out. What's your agenda. I had thought we would have a healthy debate, but with you this latest post, I guess it wouldn't be such.
As for 'working in whatever fields you are, i would not return your insult of my qualifications to you, and accept you as you claim you are. I had seen too much bogus degrees and claims to bother.
-
Originally posted by DeerHunter:
Emotional? No. But don't worry. I think this argument is healthy as long as it sticks to the facts, as compared to ones by some others.I agree with you that it MAY make no sense to you, for what we are dealing here is clearly a complex issue dealing with our reserves as well healthcare costs with a demographically changing aging population, with the inclusion of FT/FW/PR factor thrown in.
As you mentioned - "If you want to post an opinion which generalises everything to defend the government's apparent lack of money , be prepared to defend it."
Fine. If you dispute my figures and methodology on where the money comes from, then please show to the man on the street:-
a. Where the 80% of subsidy for a high medical bill comes from for 26% of our population affected by cancer.
b. Where the 80% of subsidy for a high medical bill comes from for 26% of our population affected by heart disease.
c. Where the additional S$17 comes from for a patient who seeks outpatient treatment in govt clinics (S$8) as opposed to private ones whom charges an average S$25
And your lovely quote
Many want more welfare and social action, including giving handouts from our budget surpluses and $300billion (S$414.3billion) reserves.
It seems alot of money, but just take a lot on some of the examples on providing health care costs alone.
Singapore's top killer is Cancer. At least 26% of the population around 3.5million contracts it. That means 910,000 citizens. To cure cancer, it would cost around $300,000 and rising for one patient. That would mean S$273 billion set aside just to cure our citizens of cancer, leaving only S$141 billion, even though not all will need medical attention at the same time, of course!
Heart disease is the second greatest killer in Singapore. The usual fee is around S$50,000 per citizen = another $45 billion set aside to help our citizens at 80% subsidy.
Just these 2 killers alone will cost our country S$318 billion. What about education, government, military, and other social costs? And not to mention a significant portion of it is CPF to be returned to citizens?
I will make it simple for you. You don't have to pull data from medical statistics. Just focus the answer to one average salaried person whom has to pay S$300,000 for his medical expenditure and tell me where his subsidy comes from.
You are still trying to argue with me when you have no leg to stand on?
Don't even bother telling me to find out how polyclinics get their subsidies. Simple fact: Polyclinic doctors are paid an amount per month to function unlike private GPs. Simple fact 2: Private GPs pay their own rental, their own salaries and staff/operating costs. A simple assumption : Private GPs do not have large bulk discounts from medical or pharmaceutical companies because they are not big enough to profit from. The government releases tenders for supply and usually the cheapest gets in. So taking an average bill from a private GP doesn't really cut it for me if that is where you get your info from.
Go read out how much the overall direct patient subsidies are - and I quote - overall patient subsidies exceeded more than 1.6 billion and projected to exceed 2.2 billion by 2012. I don't see hundreds of billions of dollars. Those are totals.
I attached a government release for your reference. http://www.moh.gov.sg/mohcorp/uploadedFiles/Means-Testing/Healthcare%20We%20Can%20All%20Afford.pdf
-
Originally posted by DeerHunter:
It seems you have learnt a lot on how forum works. And that it is ok for others to insult me, but my responses to their babble is aggravation. Well done.
You asking my qualifications? In this forum? And i claim to speak for the people? Did i mention that there is nothing in our govt's coffers?Are you putting words into my mouth?
Spit it out. What's your agenda. I had thought we would have a healthy debate, but with you this latest post, I guess it wouldn't be such.
As for 'working in whatever fields you are, i would not return your insult of my qualifications to you, and accept you as you claim you are. I had seen too much bogus degrees and claims to bother.
That is not answering the question. That is diverting a question which you cannot afford to answer . Referring to people's opinions as rubbish bins are an aggravation in my view . Bending the judiciary forum thread? Recall it?
Originally posted by DeerHunter:
Do crawl back into your rubbish bin where you can interprete rubbish as you wish and no one will bother.Even when I disagree with Atobe or Eagle , I don't talk to them in the mannerisms of the above quote. We argue to no end but at the end agree to disagree.
If you want to talk about something where you know almost next to nil about, prepare to take criticism.