I scrolled down and saw TOC had also shared the same article and why Gan Kim Yong said well what he had to say. Dumb! See how much vitriol he had provoked on both the CNA and TOC posts.
Why was it dumb? Because it would have been better to have kept quiet than respond to the media and remove all doubt!
Many respondents basically said the same thing in many different ways: if the elderly sick cannot pay for today's healthcare what is there to worry about tomorrow?
For policy wonks which all these ministers claim to be, I echo Keynes famous remark in his General Theory: in the long run we are all dead.
Eclectic use of economics and self interested politics is the bible of the PAP government. To them we are consumers and daft voters. We are not humans. They totally missed the point and so they are getting their well deserved brickbats.
Caring for our elderly is tantamount to caring for ourselves. It is as basic and decent as being human beings. Oh, I forgot the PAP ministers do not think we are humans.
The Americans have a dysfunctional healthcare system that could lead them to bankruptcy. The British NHS is not working and this government is happy to use it to teach my kids in social studies why our system is better.
But at least the Americans will keep their sense of humanity and as per their history will call upon their Yankee innovativeness and sacrifice to find a solution. They might fail but it is worth taking the chance to keep our humanity than to think and live like Aldous Huxley Brave New World.
If we lose our humanity we lose our reason to exist. Simple as that.
It is just life. Some lessons must be learned the hard way. Astute leaders will try to prepare the nation to go through it. Foolish leaders like what ours have become try to avoid it and end up dehumanizing ourselves which will surely destroy our souls and bodies as well.
Indeed the PAP is in a hurry working themselves out of office eventually. Get this into your hard hearts. Voters are living, breathing, flesh and blood humans and not economic units in your stupid text books you scored your As in.
We paid them the highest salaries to avoid or solve problems in a world class way but they end up re-framing problems into smaller ones so that they can give themselves As afterward. Then they wonder why we are so unhappy. This is what happen to those who are trained to be obsessed with As all their school lives. They bring the bad habit to their careers. It is an addiction.
Agree, agree, agree.
ReplyDeleteMay I remind that it was Gan who also warned that if Singapore built more hospitals, people will want to be hospitalised more!!! Or words to that effect.
Just one point - I don't expect my overpaid leaders to solve problems in a ''world class way''. There's no such thing. But I do expect them to come up with sensible and workable solutions to problems.
However, I appreciate that this is pretty difficult for them - as THEY CREATED THE DAMNED PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!! From the mercenary and materialistic attitudes of Sporeans today, to the absurd conviction that A's are all that matter, to the crowds and insufficient infrastructure.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter what we suggest, their minds are CLOSED. So much for so-called academic brilliance. That Spore is where it is today is really through sheer good luck!
This is our National Socialist ideology of Meritocracy.
ReplyDeleteIf you are meritocratic enough, you do not use Medisave to pay for the flying ambulance to bring you home for treatment in our world class General Hospital and all those who need spurs in their behinds can go die and leave their Medisave intact for her daughter-in-law Ho Jinx to make losing investments. In other words, if you are the old useless, the money is better spent elsewhere, like on long term investments that cannot recoup the cost.
Was this the guy who was giving out work permits like flyers when he was with the Manpower Ministry? Do we still trust them?
ReplyDeleteOh minister Gan So if I am 75 and need the 10K in my medisave for medical treatment that is urgent and cannot wait, you are saying - NO. Because what if he survive after the treatment and have no more medisave money and ten become sick again at 80. Hell YOU. I hope your grandfather faced this rlem.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, if the ex health minister can get a $8 heart bypass from a prof, surely Gan's grandpa will no more expensive. I am worried for my grandpa like most Singaporean. :(
DeleteGiven that the PM had again reiterated that the Government would not abandon the old (including the poor and the sick) perhaps an answer to recover from this crack shot on the foot is to consider tweaking the Medisave use by the elderly with progressive relaxation of the restrictions... i.e. 50% restriction of use for medical treatment at age 75, and progressively at 5% each year until 85 years old. This will probably give some respite for the Government in case should ALL the seniors become sick ion one fell swoop!
ReplyDeleteThereafter, even if there's no money left for the poor old chap, the Government would then take over to shoulder the burden. This way this would compel the Government to work out smarter ways to generate funds for those who live beyond 85 years, although it must not be assumed that there's no money left by many old chaps or that they would not have already "kicked the bucket, which is likely to be more than the few who are around to smell the roses in the Botanical Gardens.
If medisave can bring a person back to health and enjoy life before kicking the bucket, why is PAP restricting their use and cause the old and sick to die faster? Than the unused medisave of the dead will go into the govt coffer to feed those ministers obscene salary. This are vicious cycle long planned by PAP. I am sit of this PAP, hope PE residents can slap them in the face come Saturday polling day.
ReplyDelete