Social insurance is operated differently from private insurance. Social insurance is operated by the state, and is usually compulsory. It is funded partly by contributions from the insured members with the deficit covered by tax revenue.
Examples of social insurance are the unemployment insurance and old age pensions operated by many developed countries. In America, this is called social security. It is popular in America, which is the capital of capitalism and free market. Many countries also have health care insurance operated as a social insurance, e.g. UK, Canada and most countries of Europe.
Under a social health care insurance, there is no need to worry about pre-existing or congential conditions as they are covered. There is the risk of over-consumption of health care services which are paid by insurance, but this can be controlled to a large extent. There is also the need to control the charges made by doctors and hospitals. When the control is exercised by the state, backed by the law, it produced better results than control by private individuals exercising market choice, as can be seen by the high cost incurred by private health care insurance in America.
Singapore has stayed away from social insurance on the fear that they can be abused. This fear is exaggerated, and reflects the mindset of Singaporeans, including our leaders, in avoiding taking personal judgement and responsibility. We have to change this mindset and find new solutions to problems that have been ignored a long time. Private insurance is not suitable to handle problems such as unemployment relief and affordable health care.
Tan Kin Lian
Dcotors are one of the few professions in Singapore protected from foreign competition. To practice in Singapore, you have to be licensed by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC).
ReplyDeleteTO protect their own interests, the SMC has been adopting polcies which keep foreign doctors out. For example they only recognise qualifications from a very small number of overseas universities. The process to obtain a license is also long and tedious. The SMC even controls the number of new doctors that are trained each year by controlling the intake of students into the Faculity of Medicine at NUS.
As a result of these policies, the number of doctors in Singapore is insufficent to meet the needs of Singapore's population. This shortage has allowed the income of doctors to be maintained at levels which are signficantly above national levels. It has also casued health care costs to rise substanially.
The way to resolve the problem is to open the medical profession to foreign competition. We should allow qualified doctors from other countires to easily come to Singapore to practice. This would resolve the shortage of doctors in Singapore and help bring healthcare costs down to a more afforadable level.
Dear Mr.Tan
ReplyDeleteFor unemployment insurance
To prevent abuses, the unemployment benefit should be in proportion to the length of the worker stay employed. For example, for each year of employment, he is entitled to say free interest loan of certain amount per month(to be determined) for 2 months. If we set the limit of the loan to a maximum of say 12 months, then a worker will only need to pay the unemployment insurance premium during the first 6 years of his employment.
Forgot to mention that the other two more prominent professions protected from foreign competition are lawyers and politicans. These professions also earn substantailly more than the national average.
ReplyDeleteReply to 10:27 AM
ReplyDeleteI agree that an loan, given to an unemployed person, is a good alternative to unemployment benefit. I have advocated this concept before, and I think that it is a good system, at least for Singapore. It is better than depending on loan sharks.
Dear Mr. Tan
ReplyDeleteThank you for your reply.
If the unemployment benefit is a loan, I believe that the cost of insurance to each worker can be as low as one percent of his salary and which should be affordable to all working adults.
The unemployment insurance should be compulsory and the insurance premium should be deducted monthly from worker’s salary. To prevent abuses, the unemployment benefit should be proportionate to the length of employment of the worker.
For example: if a worker worked for 1 year and lost his job, he will entitle to a loan of say half a month of his salary per month for 2 months. If he had worked for 6 years and lost his job, he will entitle to a loan of half a month of his salary per month for 12 months.
If we set the limit of the unemployment benefit to say 12 months, then each worker will only need to pay the insurance premium during his first 6 years of employment (i.e. no premium to be deducted from the 7th year).
Pang