One of those who has openly envied our healthcare system is the heavy weight journalist writing in Financial Times, Gillian Tett. This must have made our civil service leaders and ministers very pleased. But as we all know many of us worry about our future healthcare. TTSH CEO Philip Choo says it is unaffordable. Dr. Tan Cheng Bock is openly worried about its high cost. It is an excellent healthcare system for the likes of GillianTett and her friends. This is a system good for foreigners, the new global citizens who can afford it. It is also good for us if we can pay too but the prices are inflating.
Ms Tett is not a credible observer. Many of them write with authority on subjects beyond their ken. They bestride the world loving to tell others what to do. She ought to stick to financial matters and be more humble sharing her very good personal experience here; so good that it saved her life. She might not have lived to write this even if she were treated in America.
Meanwhile I am still hearing from lots of people that in Singapore that it is better to be dead than sick because healthcare is too expensive. Such misfortune hasn't befallen my family. End of life care for my parents weren't unaffordable but it had required my parents to make very brutal choices to had kept it that way. Although prices have escalated since my late parents' time I wonder to what degree patients and their loved ones were often asking for a level of care beyond their ability to afford. If too many of us approach healthcare with this attitude, it will never be cheap enough. Unfortunately we are no wiser from the OSC on something as basic as this. Meanwhile the right, important and influential foreigners continue to sing our praises; the government think us ungrateful and impossible to please. How are we going to get better?
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