As Polling Day looms and election campaigns heat up, I'm sure many voters have already more or less decided on their choices. I know I have.
Debates about the local healthcare system rage on, as they have for decades. Cliched as this sounds, no system is perfect. But as someone from the Workers' Party recently commented during a rally: What makes sense isn't necessarily right.
If the opposition wins more seats in Parliament and calls for change, only time will tell if new policies will prove superior to what we have now.
The main question we have to ask is whether the PAP is willing to implement these changes based on the feedback they've received - even if on a trial basis - or do we need members of the opposition to push them through?
However, I find it increasingly difficult to pledge allegiance to a government that, in my opinion, swept the hospital overcrowding problem under the rug, until the Health Minister got badly flamed on a prominent blog, after which measures were hurriedly taken to minimize ( public relations ) damage control.
Or to a government which employs an MP who was fully aware of the overcrowding problem, but when directly asked to highlight the crisis to the Health Minister, let personal grudges take precedence over patient care, and replied, "Of course I can, but why should I?" [ direct quote, by the way ]
I have also heard enough horror stories from medical colleagues - it's a very small community after all - about the consequences of treating certain high-profile patients, even when the patients' stubborn refusal to obey instructions resulted in complications.
And I honestly hope the practice of having A&E doctors and nurses drop everything during a busy shift to make house calls will not be revived. VVIP ambulances exist. Use them!
Choose wisely, my friends.
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10 comments:
I don't "pledge allegiance" to this current healthcare administration or government. There are things they do that I don't agree with, even as they get many things right.
What sacres me, however, is what the alternatives seem to believe will work and are promising to implement if they get into power.
I will vote for the least of multiple evils, I think...
"I will vote for the least of multiple evils, I think..."
Instead of voting for status quo, for people who chooses not to see the flaws of the current system and chooses not to do anything about it, why not vote for people who have the right intentions to bring about change. If you believe what they think may not be in the right direction, why not put forth your views so that they are in a better position to make a considered decision?
If the lesser evil will not and cannot be saved, try saving the other one who is not evil by choice.
"people who chooses not to see the flaws of the current system and chooses not to do anything about it"
I don't believe they don't see the flaws - I think they know there are trade-offs and they are willing to live (or make us live) with those flaws.
"why not vote for people who have the right intentions to bring about change"
Because intentions alone don't pay the healthcare bills. I have read what the alternatives propose, and all they can offer is 'spend more to subsidise healthcare, never mind where that money is coming from - we can always tax the rich even more, sell off government assets, dig into the reserves, or rely on that new creative industry which we don't actually have'.
"why not put forth your views so that they are in a better position to make a considered decision?"
Hello? You're reading it.
But I guess they just prefer to "take a bottom-up approach" and base their manifesto on "issues raised by residents", which I surmise means reading TR and TOC...
It is easy to parrot a wish-list, much harder to look at the issues and come up with a workable plan.
(Mmm... shiny sixty-billion dollars... *drool*)
"try saving the other one who is not evil by choice."
Thise who are not evil by choice, those who do not see what they are doing is evil - they are the worst.
I have written before on a proposal on "how to get the money" to "spend more to subsidize healthcare"
Here are my proposals:
1) All government run hospitals to be designed as to somewhere between B2 and B1 standards. Do away with C class and A class.
2) As per above there will be no more "paying class" wards in government run hospitals
3) Impose a "private hospital tax" on private hospitals and specialist clinics. The trade off is that the government will no longer compete with the private sector for private paying patients. The private sector is free to raise the costs of PRIVATE MEDICAL CARE as they see fit according to what the market will pay. However MOH will earn revenue from the taxation of these privately run healthcare establishments.
4) The revenue from the tax above replaces the revenue from what the existing system earns from having and attracting "paying class" patients.
5) All patients in government hospitals will be treated equally. There is no means testing. Neither will there be "choice" or "patient satisfaction" type of policies. You go to the government hospital and you have to trust the doctors there. No more accusations of unfairness and inequality because of the ability to pay at government hospitals. If you are unhappy and want better, then go to the private sector where you pay true market rates.
6) No more "subsidized" paying class rates. Which is essentially what we have now because the government is competing with the private sector for the same pie thus depressing prices like the way NTUC supermarkets damper the grocery market industry.
7) As for specialists who want to stay in the public sector and miss their "paying class" patients, the current scheme of allowing them to have sessions in private hospitals will stay. However the new "private medical care" tax will come into play. How much this tax will be I leave it to the economists and the number crunchers to work out.
8) Taxing doctors earnings in the private sector will be pleasing to the electorate at large anyway. Doctors are too few in number to effect any swing in votes and with the current laws in place it is easy to tackle any potential strikes the medical profession might foolishly attempt.
"Thise who are not evil by choice, those who do not see what they are doing is evil - they are the worst."
By your logic, children are scary. Your choice.
At the end of the day,
accountability should be there.
Agree with the lesser of evils as unfortunately to me a lot of alternative supporters are starting to alienate a number of swing voters by dissing those who have different opinions even before stepping into power.
Although would state that the most liked and most supported rallies party is to me a real possibility
Regards
"By your logic, children are scary."
If children had the physical strength and the intellectual prowess to back their desires, they will be scary indeed.
"
Because intentions alone don't pay the healthcare bills. I have read what the alternatives propose, and all they can offer is 'spend more to subsidise healthcare, never mind where that money is coming from - we can always tax the rich even more, sell off government assets, dig into the reserves, or rely on that new creative industry which we don't actually have'."
Will you rather the govt spend more on helping Singapore or accumulating reserve which endup in toxic investment and reckless spending by GIC and TH ?
Have you even ask where this is so-call mystical reserve gone to ?
"ill you rather the govt spend more on helping Singapore or accumulating reserve which endup in toxic investment and reckless spending by GIC and TH ?"
I'd rather neither - this isn't a case of one or the other.
If they make a loss, at least it was not with the intention of making a loss, but for profit.
I'm glad no one took anonymous ( 4th post) seriously b/c clearly it's dumb? To tax private hospitals, doctors and patient to an extent that it can support an entire health care system to operate at a B1 level might be to tax the private industry for more than what's it's worth.
It's a good though, rather Marxist actually but the number crunching doesn't work.
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