Health Minister reveals tweaks to means testing at community hospitals
By
Salma Khalik, Health Correspondent
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan announced yesterday a move to iron out the discrepancy by introducing more income tiers to be used to determine the size of subsidy for patients in community hospitals. The change will come by July. --PHOTO: ZAOPAO
IF YOUR neighbour's per-capita family income is $300 a month, the Government will pick up three-quarters of the bill for his stay at a community hospital.
But if your total family income divided by the number of family members is just $50 more - at $350 - your bill will be subsidised by only half.
Slim down during slump
'If you are a little bit overweight, please think about slimming down. Honestly, if you are obese and you have a poor work attitude, and I'm an employer and I have so many people applying for jobs, you think I will pick you unless you have some special skills that nobody has? If your skills are just like anybody else and there are 10 of them and the rest are slim, look young and energetic, whereas you are obese or smoking - which is worse - that will be tough, right?'
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan urging Singaporeans to use the lighter workload during the downturn as an opportunity to start a healthy lifestyle.
So if you and your neighbour stay a month and each run up a $2,800 bill, you will be out of pocket by $700 more, though you are not much more well off.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan announced on Sunday a move to iron out the discrepancy by introducing more income tiers to be used to determine the size of subsidy for patients in community hospitals. The change will come by July.
Community hospitals, which cater to recovering patients who do not need acute-care, have had their subsidies calibrated by income since 2000.
With the means test, subsidies have been set at 25 per cent, 50 per cent and 75 per cent.
Although a patient's bill can be covered by MediShield insurance and Medi- save, Mr Khaw said that setting the subsidy variations at 10 percentage-point intervals up to 75 per cent would be fairer.
This way, when a person misses a particular income level by a few dollars, the amount of subsidy he loses out on will be equal to only 10 per cent of the bill.
Mr Khaw said he did not think the means test for community hospitals should be the same as for public hospitals, where the difference in subsidies is just one percentage point.
This is because community hospital bills are not as big, as the cost of running such a hospital is only about a third that of a public hospital.
Read the full story in today's edition of The Straits Times.
