Your editorial article (‘OECD countries still spend more than SG on healthcare after cuts‘) has shown with facts and figures that, quote:
“On average, the share of public spending in healthcare for OECD countries was 72% in 2011.”
Let me, however, illustrate with 2 specific examples the generous health-care subsidies one of the OECD34 countries Australia provides for the elderly – without much crowing like Singapore does:
EXAMPLE 1:
I am on the drug Diovan Valsartan for my blood pressure. I get my normal supply in Australia (where I live there with my daughter), but when back in Singapore I sometimes have to get supplementary supply at SingHealth Polyclinic. The prices I pay for this drug in Singapore and Australia are shown in (1) below.
EXAMPLE 2:
My wife suffers from diabetes. As part of management she has to monitor her glucose level daily using Medisense Optium Glucose test strips. The prices she pays for a box of 25 strips at SingHealth Pharmacy (also when she needs to top up) and for a box of 100 strips in Australia are shown in (2) below.
I have based Australia’s SUBSIDY on Singapore’s “Full Amount” because the bills in Australia don’t trumpet the full cost (“Full Amount”) and the subsidised cost (“Amount Paid”). Only government medical bills in Singapore try to show that the Singapore government is “subsidizing” and when you actually put them side-by-side to the bills in Australia, it’s really quite laughable.
These two examples are not isolated cases. They are for two items for which I managed to retrieve the bills. They do, however, show specifically that the Singapore government has a long way to go to match the OECD34 (including Australia) when Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said the Government would shoulder a greater proportion of healthcare costs, from the current 33 per cent to 40 per cent or more.
Edward