Make America Singapore

Make America Singapore

There is Singapore, whose health care system is the marvel of the wealthy world. Singaporeans pay for much of their own care out of their own pockets, and their major insurance program is designed to cover long-term illnesses and prolonged hospitalizations, not routine care. The combination has produced genuinely extraordinary results: The island state has excellent health outcomes while spending, as of 2014, just 5 percent of G.D.P. on health care. (By comparison, a typical Western European country that year spent around 10 percent; the United States spent 17 percent.)

Singaporean vision is built around personal responsibility

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Is it possible that Singaporeans have better health?

They should compare Singapore with South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. What’s the healthcare spending percentage in those places?

Singapore government promotes health consciousness. Now, many parks, MMA centers, gyms, etc. Of course, compulsory national service (full time) + 13 years of part-time national service (up to 1 month per year). It has been determined that it is cheaper to pay for healthy lifestyle than treating unhealthy problems. So government is willing to pay to encourage healthy lifestyle.

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The question is: How much do they pay for a visit to the emergency. Because over here, one visit and you are out of your so long saved money.

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Expat’s Guide

Emergency service fee typically covers basic investigations and procedures, drugs and X-ray services. Patients are charged extra if they need specialised emergency tests or scans.

Singapore General Hospital S$108
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital S$103
Alexandra Hospital S$88

Today’s exchange rate 1 US$ = S$1.3987

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I’m not at all surprised by the results. I’ve pointed out US data that shows we should do the same.

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/07/02/our-sons-visit-to-a-korean-emergency-room/

We headed back out to the waiting room counter to pay our 280,000 KRW ($250) with a credit card, and receive our receipt, printed entirely in Korea
…
We were, however, quite impressed with the care my son received in Korea. The care, the attention, and the compassion were all exemplary.
He got his stitches out by his pediatrician here in the US who said it all looked great. A little over two months later and the scar is barely noticeable.

If you have (public) health insurance (which every Korean resident has), they cover 50%.

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Man! If those charges were applied here in the US, we wouldn’t have millions of people filing for BK every year

Had a friend get an emergency appendectomy in the Dominican Republic last yer…Cost was $800…His nephew just had one in the US… $78,000…Our health costs are ridiculous. .The only solution is price controls…100 times more is theft …In the DR he had an xray, ultra sound…21th century medicine. .and was 72…The nephew was 16…Doctors and hospitals in thr US should ashamed for this kind of highway robbery…

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Does Korea’s public health insurance require people to pay 50% of the medical cost? What if someone needs a major surgery that costs $200k?

Not sure where you got this impression, but Korean health insurance pays most portion of medical cost.
However, more importantly, this single payer health care controls overall medical expense way way better than US health care plan.

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Bernie has a very clever slogan for single payer: Medicare for all.

Why can’t we have medicare like the old folks do?

Came across this good article about Singapore health care system:

American conservatives, for their part, are right that Singapore’s health-care system achieves fine results by emphasising personal responsibility, competition and low public spending. Singaporeans pay for much of their health care out of their own pockets and enjoy among the world’s highest life expectancies and lowest infant-mortality rates. The country spends just 5% of GDP on health care, of which about 2% of GDP comes from the public purse. America spends much more, 17% and 8% of GDP respectively, yet its population is much less healthy.

However, Singapore’s system also features far more coercion and government intervention than Americans would plausibly accept. Most hospitals are state-run. Most hospices and nursing homes are private but government-funded. The government heavily subsidises acute care. It promotes competition by publishing hospital bills; American health-care providers, by contrast, make their prices as opaque as possible to discourage shopping around. The government compels Singaporeans to divert up to 10.5% of their wages into “Medisave” accounts (employers contribute, too). It also subsidises “cost-effective and essential” drugs; unapproved drugs, if available, can be prohibitively expensive.

What’s the obesity rate in Singapore vs America?

What’s Singoaore and Korea’s Medicare tax rate?

Is Medicare over paying or under paying doctors and hospitals?

Medical cost is 18% of GDP. If we don’t control the cost, we need to charge an average of 18% income tax just to provide healthcare to everyone

Our problem is the high medical costs. Usually cost should be brought down by competition. Artificially control price may bring low price but could also make the medical service scarce. A shortage of hospitals and doctors can be worse than high price. But our price is ridiculous. Why is the competition mechanism not working? Do we have too much regulation on new medical school and new hospitals?

If it’s easy to open new medical school, I like to open a for-profit medical school. Or we can allow universities to add medical schools and nursing schools easily.

New hospitals should be encouraged.

Another question to ask is why Singaporean and Korean hospitals are so not greedy? Why don’t they charge more money? If US hospitals can charge this much, why can’t they charge 50% of US rate?

Why always assume regulation is the problem? If you have employer sponsored plan, do you shop for lower prices? Why not? Did the government say you can’t?

Employers and insurance companies negotiate rate with hospitals. Consumers do not know the price

Korean medicare tax rate is 6%.
Koreans have had single payer health care from the very beginning.
Thus, it didn’t create huge eco system around health care.
On the other hand, US created humongous eco system around health care.
Not only hospitals and doctors but also medical bill negotiator, many private insurance companies etc.
Frankly, it would be very difficult to bring the medical cost down to the same level with Korea, Japan or Singapore.
Those who are working in health care industry need their job security and we can’t just ignore them.
However, for the benefit of whole society, we must find the way to control the cost from now on at least.
In my opinion, the best solution is gradual transition to single payer health care (such as single payer health care in each state first).

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Maybe it’s because three areas the government heavily regulates in the name of “helping” us are increasing in cost far faster than inflation. It’s education, housing, and healthcare.

Also, shifting who pays the bill for healthcare isn’t going to lower healthcare spending as a percent of GDP. We’ll only truly lower spending if people start to make healthier decisions. 40% of healthcare spending is on preventable chronic conditions. 50% of the spending is on 5% of the people. How do other countries treat that 5% of people? No one ever wants to talk about those facts when they discuss healthcare. They just want to argue over who should pay the bill. Changing who pays isn’t going to prevent the bill from increasing at 2-3x inflation and eating up more and more of our economy. If anything, further hiding consumers from the cost is only going to increase costs.

Most countries with universal care are starting to have massive budget problems with it as their population ages and people live longer. The market for private insurance and doctors is growing rapidly in Canada. If national healthcare is to great and “free” to them, then why on earth would they pay extra money for private care? No one wants to discuss wait times in Canada and how much longer they are than in the US. Those are facts that can’t be disputed.

The healthcare debate is one of the most irrational things in this country. It boils down to pure opinion and outright ignoring all facts and data. We really are screwed.

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How is the wait time in Singapore, Korea and Japan?

Of course these 3 countries are pretty different than us. All 3 are homogeneous and severely lacking economic, moral and value system diversity.

Which country is most comparable to US?

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