SDP - Prof Tambyah to represent SDP at healthcare forum

[Cosmos10]

Prof Tambyah to represent SDP at healthcare forum

Added on: Monday, 18 November 2013

by the Singapore Democrats

http://yoursdp.org/news/prof_tambyah_to_represent_sdp_at_healthcare_forum/2013-11-18-5740

Professor Paul Tambyah will present the SDP's healthcare proposals at an upcoming forum organised by The Online Citizen to discuss healthcare in Singapore. Other opposition parties have also been invited to participate in the event.

The SDP has published our National Healthcare Plan: Caring For All Singaporeans where we put forth ideas to replace the 3M system (Medisave, Medishield, Medifund) with a single-payer system.

Written by a team of medical doctors in the SDP's Healthcare Advisory Panel, the crux of our plan is that healthcare in Singapore must be made universal, that is, that every Singaporean is entitled to quality medical care regardless of one's financial state.

The current system makes individuals pay for the main bulk of healthcare expenses, allowing the Government to pay less than its fair share. A little known fact is that Singapore has the highest out-of-pocket healthcare expenses in East Asia.

This is because the PAP Government pays only 30 percent of the country's total healthcare expenditure whereas government expenditure in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan is around 70 percent.

A specialist in infectious diseases who was promoted to full professor earlier this year, Tambyah came into prominence when he spoke at the SDP lunchtime rally in the 2011 general elections.

The SDP plan proposes that the 3M system be scrapped and replaced by the National Health Investment Fund where Singaporeans pay a much reduced amount (through their CPF) according to their income levels. The Government will make up the remainder of the budget required for our annual healthcare expenditure, currently at around $12 billion.

The NHIF will then pay 90 percent of our hospital bills. Patients will pay 10 percent up to $2,000 (per year) of the expenses.

Such an approach will significantly lower healthcare costs for Singaporeans and make our healthcare system universal and affordable for all Singaporeans.

The SDP's plan is gaining traction in the establishment. Prof Tambyah recently spoke at forum organised by the Tembusu College, National University of Singapore, and chaired by Prof Tommy Koh together with other healthcare financing experts.

Read: Paul Tambyah speaks in healthcare forum as follows:

http://yoursdp.org/news/paul_tambyah_speaks_in_healthcare_forum/2013-02-19-5556


The Singapore Medical Association also published an article written by Prof Tambyah and Dr Tan Lip Hong, another member of our Healthcare Advisory Panel, in its September 2013 issue.

Read: SDP's healthcare plan makes it into SMA news as follows:

http://yoursdp.org/news/sdp_s_healthcare_plan_makes_it_into_sma_news/2013-10-07-5721


The SDP will campaign on our healthcare plan at the next general elections.


The Online Citizen forum will be held on 30 November 2013 at 3pm at Hotel Rendezvous.

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2013/11/f2f-policy-exchange-health-care/

 

[Cosmos10]

F2F Policy Exchange – Healthcare

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2013/11/f2f-policy-exchange-health-care/

The Online Citizen has published a series of articles on Singapore’s healthcare system. We hope you have found our articles useful in giving you a better understanding of our 3M system (Medisave, MediShield, Medifund).

No conversation is complete, however, without an opportunity for you, our reader, to voice your views and concerns. As such, TOC will be organizing a public forum on healthcare, with the intent of providing an opportunity for open discussion with policy minds on healthcare issues.

Join representatives from the National Solidarity Party, Reform Party, Singapore Democratic Party, Singapore People’s Party and Workers’ Party as they discussed ways to improve the 3M system and offer their take on healthcare. The forum will be moderated by media veteran PN Balji.



Do join us for this forum –

Date: 30 November 2013, Saturday

Time: 3pm to 5pm

Location: Hotel Rendezvous, Ballroom 1

Rendezvous Hotel Singapore
9 Bras Basah Rd
Singapore 189559
+65 6336 0220

 

[Leongsam]

What a waste of time. Singapore already has one of the best healthcare systems in the world.

 

[Cosmos10]

Latest update from the Online Citizen:

Final confirmation of the Healthcare forum that will be conducted at Hotel Rendezvous this coming Saturday, 30th Nov from 3pm to 5pm.

Opposition parties that will be taking part in this forum will be the Workers' Party, National Solidarity Party, The Reform Party, Singapore Democratic Party and the Singapore People's Party.

Registered guests will receive a confirmation email later. As for non-registered guests, you are welcome to turn up for the forum but please be informed that standing space is limited.

We will try to provide live streaming of the forum if possible.

 

[Leongsam]

Forums should be held on issues where Singapore is lacking (eg the lack cycle lanes and atrocious driver behavior) rather than wasting time reinventing the wheel.

Singapore's co payment healthcare system is the envy of the world.

 

[Cosmos10]

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2013/11/f2f-policy-exchange-health-care/

5 SEATS REMAINING – NO SEATS WILL BE SPECIALLY RESERVED FOR PARTY MEMBERS AND MEDIA.

 

[Cosmos10]

Forums should be held on issues where Singapore is lacking rather than wasting time reinventing the wheel.

Read this thread in the courtyard cafe of the SBF forum:

http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?...o-in-the-World-Yet-Ministers-Have-Highest-Pay!

 

[Leongsam]

Read this thread in the courtyard cafe of the SBF forum:

http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?...o-in-the-World-Yet-Ministers-Have-Highest-Pay!

I'm already involved in that thread. The numbers mean nothing. The bottom line is the outcomes for the citizens not the number of doctors per head.

Read this article :

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...ealth-care-do-we-all-lose-to-singapore/19385/

 

[Leongsam]

In Health Care, Do We All Lose to Singapore?

Derek Thompson <time datetime="2009-06-15T10:49:46-04:00">Jun 15 2009, 10:49 AM ET</time>

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As the health care debate boils over this summer, one meme sure to be be stirred into the stew is the frequently recited fact that Americans lead the world in health spending but have no similar world-leading claim to life expectancy. In fact, we rate 50th out of more than 220 countries with an average age of 78. But as the graph after the jump shows, the disconnect between health spending and life expectancy isn't unique to America.


Here's the graph provided by CNN that shows pretty convincing that a nation's health expenditures are a pretty poor indicator of life expectancy around the world.

One conclusions that is often drawn from graphs like these is: the UK has an publicly-run health care system that would make Newt Gingrich's head explode, but they still have higher life-expectancy. But the real winner of this graph seems to me to be Singapore, whose long lives and small health expenditures are the envy of the world. As EconLog puts it, Singapore "makes Europe look like the United States."

But there's a problem with turning Singapore into a sexy pin-up for health care wonks: it breaks a lot of rules. Conservatives should hate it because the government regulates supply and sets prices and forces all its citizens to put money into a health care savings account. More liberal reformers should be irked by its famously high co-pays to help the government recoup money, because too-high co-pays are supposed to discourage the less fortunate to seek preventative care when the illness can be more cheaply treated. As Watson Wyatt sums up, it's a bizarre combination of a public option and private special care where "the private healthcare system competes with the public healthcare, which helps contain prices in both directions."


When you take stock of the compulsory savings accounts, the mandatory payroll reductions and the copays, you've got something quite weird: A largely government-run program that is ultimately funded mostly by private spending. Indeed, as a percent of total expenditures, private spending on health is higher than the United States and three times greater than the UK and Japan.

So where will Singapore fall in the health care discussion? Probably close to nowhere, unfortunately. Singapore is an extraordinary hodgepodge of health care principles, but it's also a city-state whose health care system is comprised of fewer than 30 hospitals. Still, perhaps it deserves a place in the summer-long blockbuster discussion that begins with "What are we paying for, exactly?"

 

[tanwahp]

Latest update from the Online Citizen:

Final confirmation of the Healthcare forum that will be conducted at Hotel Rendezvous this coming Saturday, 30th Nov from 3pm to 5pm.

Opposition parties that will be taking part in this forum will be the Workers' Party, National Solidarity Party, The Reform Party, Singapore Democratic Party and the Singapore People's Party.

Registered guests will receive a confirmation email later. As for non-registered guests, you are welcome to turn up for the forum but please be informed that standing space is limited.

We will try to provide live streaming of the forum if possible.

It's a rather simple oversight of not announcing the speakers.

I know Ananth will represent SDP and Gerald Giam represent WP, but what about the rest? I don't want to go there and hear Chiam and Kenneth speak - I have heard them quite a lot.

 

[metalmickey]

OK, so you got a system which is ostensibly cheap. And then the govt and the ppl like it. Who gets caught in the middle? The healthcare workers, the doctors and the nurses. No wonder there are so many medical doctors in the opposition.

 

[PoliticalDialogue]

I am curious as to why Prof Tambyah is not a member of the SDP CEC.

 

[tanwahp]

I am curious as to why Prof Tambyah is not a member of the SDP CEC.

I'm not curious about the reasons, but it does affect the way I perceive the SDP. Either Ananth is not a committed person or the SDP tries not to have too many good people at the top.

 

[3_M]

[
The SDP plan proposes that the 3M system

The SDP will campaign on our healthcare plan at the next general elections.

The biggest problem with SDP healthcare plan etc isn't about the detail but their ability to implement it. If this is the case, public will not see this as an alternative platform.

 

[PoliticalDialogue]

I'm not curious about the reasons, but it does affect the way I perceive the SDP. Either Ananth is not a committed person or the SDP tries not to have too many good people at the top.

It could in fact be both of these reasons. SDP, it seems, cannot get away from public perceptions.

Contrast that with the 3 people who brought into the WP CEC recently. All 3 were involved in grassroots work before they got co-opted into the WP CEC.

 

[metalmickey]

I'm not curious about the reasons, but it does affect the way I perceive the SDP. Either Ananth is not a committed person or the SDP tries not to have too many good people at the top.

The way that doctors are these days - you think it's possible for people to do grassroots all the time and still keep up with your doctor work? Maybe Koh Poh Koon can do it, but to do opposition grassroots at a level which is required from an opposition party member, that's going to be tough.

 

[tanwahp]

The way that doctors are these days - you think it's possible for people to do grassroots all the time and still keep up with your doctor work? Maybe Koh Poh Koon can do it, but to do opposition grassroots at a level which is required from an opposition party member, that's going to be tough.

I was talking about his positioning in the party, not grassroots work. With his calibre, you would have thought that he will at least be in the CEC. If the SDP CEC had many Ananths it is a different story. It's the opposite case - even Jufrie could be chairman shows how lacking it was.

 

[Cosmos10]

If you are interested, you can watch the forum LIVE at the following link.

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/livestreaming/

The forum will end at about 5pm.

 

[Cosmos10]

SDP - Prof Tambyah: Healthcare is a basic right. We should have decent basic healthcare for everyone.

 

[Cosmos10]

Discussion continues in the following NEW thread as follows:

http://singsupplies.com/showthread....are-plan-universal-affordable-and-sustainable