Buying a health insurance policy can paradoxically result in poor health outcomes instead.
Merchants had to borrow $$$ to build ship, buy goods to export abroad and would only be able to repay debts when the ship returned with foreign imports to sell at profit.
Thus merchants pooled together a rescue fund to avoid bankruptcy in case a member's ship sank from UNAVOIDABLE conditions so the member need not be bankrupt / go to jail.
Points to note:
- Members knew, respected and trusted each other.
- The payout condition involved an unavoidable mishap (impossible to predict inclement weather ).
Hospitalization insurance in Singapore may actually result in worse health outcomes if:
- Subscriber pool consists of ignorant / irresponsible people who neglect their own health resulting in higher claims and so higher premiums for all.
- Insurance gives false confidence that medical problems can be solved by expensive healthcare resulting in insured neglecting health because some cancers like pancreatic cancer is linked to diabetes / sedentary lifestyle, smoking and is almost always incurable even in early stages.
- the stress of paying insurance premiums results in one skipping exercise, reducing sleep to work/study more hours etc resulting in poor health.
- the unpredictability of future health insurance premiums can be a significant source of stress that is detrimental to human health.
- Healthcare insurance / rider plans encourage doctors to become mercenary and greedy because with costs out of the picture, they can easily convince patients to undergo unnecessarily complex medical test and expensive medical procedures. This is bad for society as it inflates healthcare costs for everyone else and encourages the culture of greed in the profession.
My recommendation is to FIRSTLY upkeep one's own health through good lifestyle habits like proper sleep, posture, regular fitness/ strength training, stress control, good interpersonal / family relationships, healthy diet (avoid processed food), stop smoking, alcohol in moderation, protective helmet / attire during cycling etc to avoid trauma/ injury, personal health literacy, etc.
The gahmen already has highly subsidised public healthcare. As long as one has some savings, should be enough for class C/B2 treatment if one can self navigate personal health a bit: i.e. have a sporty lifestyle because many symptoms of say anaemia/ lethargy due to cancer, cause progressive fall in exercise performance, reduced stamina, pains etc thus causing the health conscious individual to see early medical investigation and thus much less complicated treatment if the problem is in the simple / early to manage stage.
Problem with healthcare insurance is that many insurance companies do not have proper fitness promoting premium discounts for subscribers (they operate much like medical concierge / bulk purchases of healthcare that is all) resulting in subscribers neglected health and thus the limitless increase in annual premiums payable as well as the possibility of insurer either declaring bankrupt due to inability to settle liabilities or else unaffordable premiums due to the large anticipated payouts that insurers face.
In short, healthcare insurance should only be a discretionary / LUXURY item which is an extension of personal responsibility for personal health which should be the primary / PRINCIPAL CONCERN.
My logical suggestion is thus to only buy private hospitalization insurance if u have spare $$$ after 1st focusing on managing one's own fitness and health. Personal health is wealth that nobody can steal and in the light of insurers facing increasingly expensive claims from its healthy lifestyle illiterate/ irresponsible subscriber base, the only guarantee of a good life in the light of medical insurance becoming unaffordable or ironically becoming a hassle and a distraction from a healthy lifestyle instead.
Many insurance companies may also raise overall premiums to stratospheric levels (/retire old plans in favour of newly designed plans with inbuilt discounts for subscribers with physical fitness test requirements) to rid themselves of anticipated high claims customers (to protect bottom line) and may institute objective age appropriate physical fitness tests like IPPT or age/ handicap appropriate test to allocate discounts. Customers unable to meet fitness criteria will not be able to afford to renew / need to downgrade their policy claims limit because they are considered high claims liabilities.
PS: what I have said refers only to healthcare / hospitalization insurance. The reader should also consider his own personal needs wrt simpler (less complicated) forms of insurance such as home mortgage insurance, life insurance etc.
Historically, insurance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_insurance I believe was like started in Europe by ship merchants because loss of ship to bad weather was a very high costs/ bankrupt people were sent to jail.bryantan123(HWZ) said:
Merchants had to borrow $$$ to build ship, buy goods to export abroad and would only be able to repay debts when the ship returned with foreign imports to sell at profit.
Thus merchants pooled together a rescue fund to avoid bankruptcy in case a member's ship sank from UNAVOIDABLE conditions so the member need not be bankrupt / go to jail.
Points to note:
- Members knew, respected and trusted each other.
- The payout condition involved an unavoidable mishap (impossible to predict inclement weather ).
Hospitalization insurance in Singapore may actually result in worse health outcomes if:
- Subscriber pool consists of ignorant / irresponsible people who neglect their own health resulting in higher claims and so higher premiums for all.
- Insurance gives false confidence that medical problems can be solved by expensive healthcare resulting in insured neglecting health because some cancers like pancreatic cancer is linked to diabetes / sedentary lifestyle, smoking and is almost always incurable even in early stages.
- the stress of paying insurance premiums results in one skipping exercise, reducing sleep to work/study more hours etc resulting in poor health.
- the unpredictability of future health insurance premiums can be a significant source of stress that is detrimental to human health.
- Healthcare insurance / rider plans encourage doctors to become mercenary and greedy because with costs out of the picture, they can easily convince patients to undergo unnecessarily complex medical test and expensive medical procedures. This is bad for society as it inflates healthcare costs for everyone else and encourages the culture of greed in the profession.
My recommendation is to FIRSTLY upkeep one's own health through good lifestyle habits like proper sleep, posture, regular fitness/ strength training, stress control, good interpersonal / family relationships, healthy diet (avoid processed food), stop smoking, alcohol in moderation, protective helmet / attire during cycling etc to avoid trauma/ injury, personal health literacy, etc.
The gahmen already has highly subsidised public healthcare. As long as one has some savings, should be enough for class C/B2 treatment if one can self navigate personal health a bit: i.e. have a sporty lifestyle because many symptoms of say anaemia/ lethargy due to cancer, cause progressive fall in exercise performance, reduced stamina, pains etc thus causing the health conscious individual to see early medical investigation and thus much less complicated treatment if the problem is in the simple / early to manage stage.
Problem with healthcare insurance is that many insurance companies do not have proper fitness promoting premium discounts for subscribers (they operate much like medical concierge / bulk purchases of healthcare that is all) resulting in subscribers neglected health and thus the limitless increase in annual premiums payable as well as the possibility of insurer either declaring bankrupt due to inability to settle liabilities or else unaffordable premiums due to the large anticipated payouts that insurers face.
In short, healthcare insurance should only be a discretionary / LUXURY item which is an extension of personal responsibility for personal health which should be the primary / PRINCIPAL CONCERN.
My logical suggestion is thus to only buy private hospitalization insurance if u have spare $$$ after 1st focusing on managing one's own fitness and health. Personal health is wealth that nobody can steal and in the light of insurers facing increasingly expensive claims from its healthy lifestyle illiterate/ irresponsible subscriber base, the only guarantee of a good life in the light of medical insurance becoming unaffordable or ironically becoming a hassle and a distraction from a healthy lifestyle instead.
Many insurance companies may also raise overall premiums to stratospheric levels (/retire old plans in favour of newly designed plans with inbuilt discounts for subscribers with physical fitness test requirements) to rid themselves of anticipated high claims customers (to protect bottom line) and may institute objective age appropriate physical fitness tests like IPPT or age/ handicap appropriate test to allocate discounts. Customers unable to meet fitness criteria will not be able to afford to renew / need to downgrade their policy claims limit because they are considered high claims liabilities.
PS: what I have said refers only to healthcare / hospitalization insurance. The reader should also consider his own personal needs wrt simpler (less complicated) forms of insurance such as home mortgage insurance, life insurance etc.
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