Survivor - The Singapore Episode

It has to be one-upmanship. Or a special production of "Survivor: The Mini-star Version", where the incumbents on a tiny island outwit, outplay and outlast each other for another 5 years of million dollar salaries. Not be upstaged by Mah Bow Tan's largess of a $20,000 Special Housing Grant, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan is raising the stakes with a $7 billion boost for healthcare.

It's definitely more amazing than his $8 bill for a heart bypass in a Singapore hospital where lots of Susan Lim wannabes roam the corridors, especially when you consider that the 2011 health budget was surgically shaved $24 million from the $4.1 billion allocated for 2010. These guys are playing so fast and furious with the numbers, they should be in the money pit of the casinos, instead of parliament house.

It was good to hear of a new polyclinic for Punggol and that 5 older ones will be upgraded. Doubling of the subsidy cap for heart implants - like the pacemakers octogenarians are using to stay in the electoral hustings - is timely, since our senior citizens with cardiovascular vulnerability will need all the help they can get when the tsunami of fee and tariff hikes roll right in after the election. Khaw made it plain that "Singaporeans must continue to face some "hard truths", such as the fact that there is no free health care as someone has to pay the bills. Make no mistake, that someone is YOU. A reader posted his records of the consultation charge at a Geylang Polyclinic:

• 2005 - $20.00
• 2008 - $28.40
• 2009 - $32.71
• 2010 - $42.06

Khaw claims that although the United States spent 18 per cent of its GDP on health care, "they know that much of that is unnecessary". He refers to the terminally ill, and his personal view that Americans strive to prolong life at all cost, never mind the quality of life nor "the futility of such endeavor". The last bit should explain his philosophy of shipping out the senior citizens to Batam, Bintang or Johore. On the other hand, Singapore spends 4 percent of GDP on health care and, according to Khaw, " has a good and relatively inexpensive health care system because we have sensible and wise doctors." Quite obviously, the good doctor hasn't been apprised of the Brunei patient episode.