Life, Basketball and A Tub of Haagen Dazs.
I was at the supermarket yesterday- considering buying a tub of chocolate Haagen Dazs for dessert. After much thought I decided to forgo that, as well as the fried prawn paste chicken I was thinking of having for lunch. In the end I opted for rice and a healthy bowl of herbal soup. The days of eating what I want when I want however I want is a thing of the past. As you grow older, you can’t just party like its 1999.
The older you get, the more your body changes. I can’t eat like a horse and not expect to put on some pounds. Its not like before when I can shovel an unlimited amount of food into my body and have it all magically disappear into an alternate dimension. My metabolism is just not what it used to be.
Last thursday I was playing full court basketball- the first full court I’ve played in 6 years. Its strange to see the young guys running effortlessly up and down the court while I seem to run with a parachute attached to my back. I remembered that was how I used to be. But like everything else, speed and quickness has also become a thing of the past. Fitness and stamina can be maintained indefinitely through regular exercise, but speed and quickness are strictly the domain of the young.
Sometimes this is just how it is. No matter how hard you try, there just some things in life that you can’t hold on to.
I am not some health freak, but I do think that as one gets older, its probably a smart thing to start putting some consideration into your your diet and lifestyle. Last year, singapore experienced the biggest inflation in quite a long while. Prices went on this crazy spiral no thanks to the 2% increase in GST. Lost in numbers is that healthcare accounted for a huge part of that increase. And even with the budget surplus that the government is having, they are not budging from the means testing they are planning to implement on public healthcare and the CPF Life/ compulsory annuity/ whateverthefuckyouwannacallit scheme. Bullshit by any other name still stinks like bullshit.
Looking at these developments, the only conclusions I can draw is-
1. Healthcare cost will continue to spiral upwards. The government aspires to be the medical hub of asia- a development which I think will only lead to more expensive healthcare.
2. The government knows healthcare is going to spiral upwards and they are taking action to shift that part of the burden from them to us.
3. Government would prefer to spend billions bailing ailing foreign companies than spend millions bailing ailing citizens.
In other words, singaporeans are once again left on their own to deal with this shit while the government continues to pay themselves millions to watch everyone suffer. Unless the MIWs lose a couple of GRCs the next election, I do not think they will change the way they do things in singapore.
So in light of the following revelations, the only logical thing to do is do your best to live a healthy lifestyle, exercise regularly and watch what you put in your mouth and try your damnest not to fall sick. As they say in singapore, it is better to die than to fall sick.
10 Comments so far
3. Government would prefer to spend billions bailing ailing foreign companies than spend millions bailing ailing citizens.
Though I agree with almost everything you blog, I kind of don’t agree with point three.
You’ve got to understand that if the government were to subsidize too much, citizens will be too dependent and it will result into a vicious cycle (More subsidizes, higher taxes) like the British NHS in the past.
Well, the thing is, no matter how much they subsidize, we’ll never be satisfied and happy. Human wants are endless.
Great post. I am glad you unscarmbled your thoughts. Agree with you that as I reach my mid 40s it is easier to put on a beer belly than to work it off. and yes, the govt will make this a medical hub, make all restructured hospital revenue based and screw you!
Jun Jie, interesting observatons. Up to a point you are correct. Yes, human wants are endless. That is why there will be another round of minister salary increase. LKY and GCT already hinted at it by saying 4th generation leaders cannot be found. Unfortunately our Ministers also have unlimited wants. It is a matter of priority of how we want to spend our GST collections / budget revenue. At the moment, GIC and Temasek Holding GMs and directors also have endless wants – increase the reserves of singapore exponentially, so they can all get obscene amount of bonuses (think about it, what are their KPIs? – to grow the reserves and not spend it on the needy undeserving peasants of Singapore.) Whose money is it? the citizens’ or the directors of GIC / Temasek for them to punt on US stock market??
[...] Healthcare – Insane Polygons: Life, Basketball and A Tub of Haagen Dazs [...]
“Unless the MIWs lose a couple of GRCs the next election, I do not think they will change the way they do things in singapore.”
your view that the m.i.w.s will change their methodology of governing the country (if they lose a few g.r.c.s) is a tad utopian. a more likely scenario will be that of further punishing the citizens who voted against them, given their often self-pwned statements of making life difficult for the residents living in the existing 2 renegade slates of hougang and potong pasir.
i do not see the possibility of the masses tipping in favour of the opposition in the near future (or even in our lifetime). i have read up enough about the various dynasties of china (and found many uncanny similarities between the olden days of country administration and that of modern day singapore): it will probably take another few hundred years for the current incumbent party to be toppled (i.e. for people to become so angry with the style of governance that they rally together against the ruler).
[note: but then again, unlike the situation centuries ago whereby people are less mobile (and thus stuck in the land where they were born - and continue to suffer for generations to the extent when they cannot take it anymore and rebel), citizens nowadays are mobile and interconnected with the rest of the world - the disillusioned can easily uproot and go elsewhere (which many fellow singaporeans had done, are in the process of doing, or will do it in future) - and we may never even see the m.i.w.s loosing grip of the rulership of this island as they keep bringing in foreigners to replace the locals. to extrapolate, we may very well be left with less than 10% or even zero "real" citizens in the future. the vast majority of "locals" (up to 60-75%) in the next fifty years (when you and i grow old) would probably be made up of the foreigners the singapore government attracts from the late 1990s to the next 10 years. by that time, maybe even the entire cabinet & m.p.s are made up of chinese and indian nationals we attract today.]
Junjie- Actually I am not asking for more subsidies or even universal free healthcare like the British NHS. I am satisfied with what the government are already giving us now. But I am just unable to accept their explanations for implementing means testing. Their assurance of so-called “affordable” healthcare, I take with a large dose of salt.
To me, I just see it as an preemptive strike against rising healthcare cost due to a greying population. And the healthcare cost will increase not because of increasing subsidies, but because of an increasingly greying population. And frankly speaking, the government has only themselves to blame for their disastrous population control policies implemented 30-40 years ago resulting in singapore becoming one of the fastest greying society on earth.
I wondered… what is the aim of health care service? Isn’t it the provision of sustainable, affordable health care service, as well as equal distribution of scarce health care resources?
Directing my question to Insane Polygons and Junjie, will it be possible for the government to provide affordable health care service to the population in the future, in the context of inflation and increasing healthcare cost, without more government intervention or investment in healthcare service? No, it is not possible.
Population in Singapore is greying, the elderly will definitely get chronic disease, organ fails or degenerate, acquire infection, fall and break their hips or get cancer. It is unequivocal that this WILL happen regardless of how you try to prevent diseases or promote good living habit. With increased overall life expectancy and more elderly(increase demand for healthcare services) and greater healthcare cost(high-end investigations and new drugs), these will translate to costlier hospital bills. I don’t see how, without increasing investment in healthcare (plus subsidy), the burden of costlier healthcare bill will (now and in near future) not be shouldered by our citizens.
Mean testing doesn’t prevent increase in health care cost, neither does it prevent middle income group from being subjected to financial catastrophe due to long hospital stay. (Moreover, since the wealthy pays more tax anyway, what reason is there to deny them from using subsidised class C wards?)
Private insurance-led healthcare in USA has shown to be highly defective by denying the poor of adequate healthcare coverage, while proven to be less effective compared with British NHS (in terms of outcomes like cancer, heart disease etc) and requires more per capital health investment.
So which direction should the government take? It is dilemma isn’t it? In my humble opinion, with the increasing demands and healthcare cost; unless the government is prepared to substantially increase investment in healthcare sector, the people will get the shorter of the stick.
Scylla & Charybdis (‘wet behind ear’ medic)
Read:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/295/17/2037.pdf
http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/speech_toc/downloads/FY2008_Budget_Highlights.pdf
And as a footnote, from a moral point of view, is it justifiable for the poor, the old, the infirmed, the exploited and the under-priviledged to be denied access to holistic, efficient and effective healthcare? Will it be a real shame if these people are reluctant to seek medical advice early due to the deterrence of high healthcare cost?
If the Hippocratic Oath can be applied to the Burmese generals, should it not be applied with the same measure in this case?
Scylla & Charybdis (the ’wet behind ear’ medic)
Did we have such a narrow mind to confine ourselves within what Singaore government can do, or are we just brainwashed by the propaganda ?
Why is it that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Finland and the rest of countries can cope with this issues whereas the world-most expensive coffers couldn’t even do it but impose increasing burden on the public ?
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