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CHAPTER 3 – MANAGING HEALTHCARE (SINGAPORE)
In some ways, I agree. Encouraging self-reliance of an individual is the most important factor to not put a strain on government spending on healthcare. One way of self-reliance is medisave. It encourages people to be responsible for their own health by channeling a certain amount of money from their CPF to the medisave account. This money in medisave can be used to pay the hospital bills and medical treatment. Hence, healthcare became a shared responsibility and government does not need to increase taxes to pay for the healthcare costs. Medishield is another way that helps people who require long-term treatment of more serious illnesses and not be able to pay for their bills. Patients can claim from the medishield to pay for medical services that medisave do not cover to meet the specific needs of the people so that even elderly people without CPF are able to pay for medical bills. Another factor is maintaining a healthy lifestyle so that people do not have to pay for any medical bills and not worry about the medical costs increasing.
In some ways, I disagree. Government keeping the healthcare costs affordable is also important. Government subsides can ensure that healthcare is affordable for most Singaporeans and of lower-income groups by giving different rates of subsidies to the different class of wards in hospital, just like Class c will receive the most subsidies. This way, the lower-income group will pay less for the facilities but also ensures that they pay their share of the costs as well. Self-reliance is once again practiced. Also, medifund is introduced the way that government will help to pay for the hospital fees of lower income groups who still cannot pay the hospital bills even with medishield, medisave and subsidies. Means-testing is also set up to check whether the patients are able to pay for their own medical fees to ensure that more resources are available for the real needy people. Promoting a...