If You Can Pay, You Can Afford It



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 Everybody knows about the $8 bill Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan paid for his surgical bypass. What we don't know is whether he had lobotomy done on the side to take advantage of the special rates he seems to enjoy. How else to account for his comment on the report that the average bill for a subsidised C-class patient has almost doubled in the four years since 2006? "The bottom line: We have good high-standard public hospitals that are affordable because of the 3Ms, " he said, referring to Medisave, Medishield and Medifund.

That's like Development Minister Mah Bow Tan saying HDB housing is affordable since a 25-year-old can always take out a 30 year loan. Never mind if he discovers decades later, at age 55, there's nothing left for retirement.

Khaw claims the majority have no difficulty in paying their bills, and four out of five of them are able to use Medishield and Medisave to cover the whole bill. There are good reasons why Singaporeans pay up bills: 1) the authorities will not hesitate to haul them up to court, 2) the loan sharks will spray paint their house-gates for free. And if it comes to jumping in front of the MRT tracks, you betcha LTA will make the surviving kin pay for messing up their shiny trains. When one guy decided to leap out of a hospital window while waiting his turn for a scan, he wasn't mentally disturbed as one reporter wrote. In all probability, the nightmare of a horrendous hospital bill may have contributed to his choice of drastic measures.

Asked to comment on the issue, unionist and fellow PAP MP Halimah Yacob would only call for healthcare costs to stay affordable and for the poor to have access to the various help schemes, a lame but politically correct response to a gross social injustice.