In Today's news (http://www.todayonline.com/voices/s600-year-your-health-sdp), SDP proposed a universal payment of 600SGD every year by all Singaporeans from their CPF into a National Health Investment Fund - basically a national health insurance. (read the article to understand more)
I personally dun see the point of this. The 3M system (Medisave, MediShield and Medifund) is adequate, just require some tweaking and improvement to make it better.
WHAT SDP TRYING TO SOLVE:
- a peace of mind when come to spending for healthcare
- not to use CPF which is a retirement savings for hospital bills (including parents and children's bills)
- create a simpler healthcare system
SOLUTION BY SDP:
- All Singaporeans pay on average 600 SGD from CPF
- Those cannot afford to pay this yearly fee will be contributed by the Govt instead
- Treat healthcare as a basic right of Singaporeans
- Different co-payments for outpatient treatment of acute conditions and serious hospitalisation
All sounding good right (if you think very simply)?
Now read this article on the 3M, to understand what it does: http://www.healthxchange.com.sg/healthyliving/SpecialFocus/Pages/Understanding-Medisave-MediShield-Medifund.aspx
MY QUESTION/DOUBTS ON THE SDP'S PROPOSAL:
- What's the difference from what we are already paying for Medisave via our CPF account? The SDP idea may be over-compensating or even resembles too much of a socialistic mentality (resulting in many people paying a lot more than what they do now)
- Co-payment for serious conditions vs MediShield's insurance plans that help ppl to cover large bills (including up to 80% of hospitalisation fee); Co-payment sounds like we need to pay the cost sum...
- Those of low income group are now protected by Medifund. The SDP solution basically still requires them to pay for their national fund idea; if not then govt help them pay... Somehow something just doesnt feels right on this.
- the "simpler system" may turn out to be too "simplistic".
- SDP's idea did not touch on how they are solving the "used for children and elderly parent's bills" part. I cant supposed they want the children and retired people to contribute to this fund also right? PIAK! back to square one isnt it?
MY SUGGESTIONS :
- Don't take up the SDP idea. But improve the current 3M system
- Anyone who passed away, their medical debt that is borne by their children/next of kin should be halved (or waived, but waiving it will create problems, as people may just choose not to pay the bills); so to not burden them further than the hurt of losing their love one. Furthermore, its only fair since the medical care rendered did not really save the patient's life.
- Allow the usage of CPF OA funds to be used for serious medical problems or huge healthcare fees. What's the point of having savings for retirement when you can live longer enough to touch it? Health must come first, money can earn more later.
- Create a more comprehensive national scheme for retirement --> which I will touch on with another article some day.
-------
Conclusion:
The threat of ideas that sounds really good, may not really be that good. Political points can be gained with the Oppositions give populist ideas, but not all are valid or a true improvement on the current systems. What SDP had proposed is basically more of the same thing, just phrased differently. And if they are in power, they might implement this, and then end up having more worms in the can to catch than they expected.
So YOLO peeps~ =}
Showing posts with label CPF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CPF. Show all posts
Friday, March 22, 2013
Thursday, December 30, 2010
CPF becoming Income Tax
CPF was originally conceived as a mechanism to help Singaporeans save money for their retirement, in case they didnt do it themselves - a very legitimate and right thing to do, like many of the other policies created during the time when LKY is still in his prime, thinking clearly, connected to the ground and when the government is serving the people.
But over the years, after the government changed their philosophy from "serving the people" to "economic growth over everything", good intended policies starts to get corrupted and perverted.
In recent times, the Government had announced that the retirement age will be raised from the original 55 to 65. As a result, the CPF will be freeze for another 10 years. That also mean that my mother whom is approaching 55, whom should be retiring soon, CANNOT retire and have to work for another 10 years. I wonder where...
In a country where prosperity was promised to be shared among everyone to make everyone's life better, it can't be further than the truth.
By raising the retirement age to 65, it effectively made CPF a form of Income Tax. And the payout, a form of welfare system which.... you actually paid it yourself - like Insurance with minimum interest rates.
According to the statistics (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html), only less than 20% of the people at the moment now can live to the age of 65. It should increase in the near future BUT think abt this: in the modern day of polluted world, increased stress, increase health problems, and curse of diseases - how many can actually live past that 65. How many can still enjoy their life of retirement at 65?
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement), even in European countries, almost all the countries have less than 50% of the people past 60 still working in the work force. These are countries which also had their normal retirement age set at 65.
As a boss, would you want to hire even a 50 year old employee to work in positions in the lower rang of your company hierarchy? In the new economy (post 2010), the world is going to be increasingly competing through the use of innovation and design - in such a world, how does the older workforce find employment when everyone is looking for creative and trendy thinkers. Must a former director really go to be a taxi driver or a former manager become a kopitiam worker to fulfill that 65 retirement age?
What is retirement?
Retirement is the moment when people stop working and enjoy the fruit of their labour after over 30-40 years of toiling and struggling.
Even if I'm just 27 now, the thought of working to 65 is scary. CPF means nothing to me but just another name for a separate Income Tax (its based on your income isnt it?) and retirement age of 65 is simply the "marker" to qualify you for the welfare system camouflage as "CPF" (which the government kept saying they dun want to be a welfare state).
Its simply the same thing as another country, setting a higher Income Tax level but have a welfare system to ensure you have money to stay alive after retirement - just that the government make it sounds like its doing it for you, but its just a branding exercise to make a 2nd Income Tax sounds NOT like an Income Tax.
But over the years, after the government changed their philosophy from "serving the people" to "economic growth over everything", good intended policies starts to get corrupted and perverted.
"...the government changed their philosophy from "serving the people" to "economic growth over everything""
In recent times, the Government had announced that the retirement age will be raised from the original 55 to 65. As a result, the CPF will be freeze for another 10 years. That also mean that my mother whom is approaching 55, whom should be retiring soon, CANNOT retire and have to work for another 10 years. I wonder where...
In a country where prosperity was promised to be shared among everyone to make everyone's life better, it can't be further than the truth.
By raising the retirement age to 65, it effectively made CPF a form of Income Tax. And the payout, a form of welfare system which.... you actually paid it yourself - like Insurance with minimum interest rates.
"By raising the retirement age to 65, it effectively made CPF a form of Income Tax."
According to the statistics (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html), only less than 20% of the people at the moment now can live to the age of 65. It should increase in the near future BUT think abt this: in the modern day of polluted world, increased stress, increase health problems, and curse of diseases - how many can actually live past that 65. How many can still enjoy their life of retirement at 65?
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement), even in European countries, almost all the countries have less than 50% of the people past 60 still working in the work force. These are countries which also had their normal retirement age set at 65.
"...almost all the countries have less than 50% of the people past 60 still working in the work force. These are countries which also had their normal retirement age set at 65."
As a boss, would you want to hire even a 50 year old employee to work in positions in the lower rang of your company hierarchy? In the new economy (post 2010), the world is going to be increasingly competing through the use of innovation and design - in such a world, how does the older workforce find employment when everyone is looking for creative and trendy thinkers. Must a former director really go to be a taxi driver or a former manager become a kopitiam worker to fulfill that 65 retirement age?
What is retirement?
Retirement is the moment when people stop working and enjoy the fruit of their labour after over 30-40 years of toiling and struggling.
Even if I'm just 27 now, the thought of working to 65 is scary. CPF means nothing to me but just another name for a separate Income Tax (its based on your income isnt it?) and retirement age of 65 is simply the "marker" to qualify you for the welfare system camouflage as "CPF" (which the government kept saying they dun want to be a welfare state).
"...its just a branding exercise to make a 2nd Income Tax sounds NOT like an Income Tax."
Its simply the same thing as another country, setting a higher Income Tax level but have a welfare system to ensure you have money to stay alive after retirement - just that the government make it sounds like its doing it for you, but its just a branding exercise to make a 2nd Income Tax sounds NOT like an Income Tax.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
My suggestion on some policies.
The government had been touting abt them giving substantial state subsidies for education, health care and public housing.
Unfortunately, being a person whom had grown up from a lower income family, I had saw and experienced the effects of government's policy over time since i was still a kid. In summary, I can only say that the "standard of living" had been decreasing due to a increase in "cost of living".
My philosophy that what a government MUST do, in order to honour the principle that the government serves the people and not the other way round: is that basic fundamental needs MUST BE taken care of. Namely: Health Care, Accommodation and Education.
HEALTH CARE
As far as i'm concerned, I still feel that healthcare is too expensive (for surgeries, operations, etc... the major illness and diseases) for Singaporeans. There MUST BE SUBSTANTIAL, if not, NEAR COMPLETE healthcare subsidies or aids given to Singaporeans - If you want ppl to increase their productivity, then spare them the misery of forking out life savings to save themselves and the tragedy of skipping treatments and delaying operations due to a lack of money. (my mother did delay certain scans or checks because of financial issues).
ACCOMMODATION
The HDB's role was to ensure EVERY SINGAPOREAN have a roof over their head. Unfortunately, there had been news abt ppl living in the streets as well as pitching tents at campsites as a makeshift accommodation. This is particularly disturbing to me.
The entire HDB policy should be reviewed to keep up with times. As now that the country had been pretty developed, the HDB should reinvent and NOT BECOME like another real estate company which is trying their best to siphon money from the citizens. While at the same time, HDB flats SHOULD AND MUST be easily affordable and acquired by local citizens. The current practise is just a delibrate manipulation of the property prices, causing an unneccesary bubble and uncalled for encouragement towards "public property trade" (using HDB apartments as a tool to earn money).
Its a cause and effect - if the property will always rise in value in ridiculous rates, then people will definitely use the opportunity to earn money with it - and ultimately, the people who suffer will be people from my generation and the generations that follow ; BECAUSE it would be impossible to afford an apartment anymore in the future.
I have this vision that, the money paid for the flats would go into their CPF (a way to let ppl own a house while assisting them to save money for retirement) instead of money being deducted for payment for their flats. But perhaps, the owners will not be able to sell the flat, since they virtually paid nothing to stay in that apartment (since their money is "paid" into their CPF).
While this is just a seed idea, not a full policy suggestion, but its a new concept and perspective towards public housing. - The idea is that public housing is to ensure people have a house to stay. While there are definitely loads of people unable to afford their dream house or invest in one, but we should not deprive them of the opportunity to stay in one (albeit them might not be able to sell and earn from it).
The catch is that:
people can choose either to pay like what they are doing now, which gives them to chance to cash in by selling their apartment when the valuation is higher
OR
people can choose to "skip" that "upgrading process", and just be contented living in their dream apartment (while they still pay half the "market rates" of similar category of the apartment) but with their monthly "rent" paid into their CPF to help them save money for retirement or rainy days.
This idea still need improvements and fine tuning, since its just a concept. But I see promises of a better lives for many Singaporeans.
EDUCATION
To me, education is an investment by the country to ensure the sustainability and productivity of the future Singapore. Every single person who dropped out or unable to pursue their studies means a lost opportunity for Singapore to extract the best and maximise the potential of our single most important asset - the people.
To cut story short - a school should be created to teach entrepreneurship and business to those that dropped out of secondary school.
This group of drop outs are extremely isolated and with no "route of advancement" for them in life. ITE requires at least a 'N' level. Every single job out there requires at least an 'O' level, regardless if that job can be even done by a 12 year old. I see this as a failure on the part of the society and the government's policy - likened to the India's caste system.
Why entrepreneurship? Because many of this people just dun like studying/dun have the penchant for memorising/kicked out of school for not being compliant to the system (but many a time is because these kids matured ahead of their time)/misleaded and lack a purpose in life.
Teaching these kids and providing them the skills and perhaps some funds to kick start a small business; these kids with their young and creative minds, could do wonders. Even those who are delinquents, seeing that whatever they do now can earn them cold hard cash; they will definitely find a new and better purpose in life than to just hand around void decks and commit stupid crimes.
I met some people whom graduated from top local schools and these "elites" have a disdain and straightforward dismissal of people studying in Normal Tech Stream (which does not exist in their school) for being delinquents (while based on my experience, the worst lots of the students usually comes from Normal Academic Stream, but others also come from both Express and NT stream) and assumed that neighbourhood school students are inferior to them. These sort of elitism mindset carried by their elites would be brought into the parliament where these Elites comes into power.
I want this "worse than racism" paradigm to be changed.
Getting 'A's in school does not equal to success in life and better contribution to society and country.
Unfortunately, being a person whom had grown up from a lower income family, I had saw and experienced the effects of government's policy over time since i was still a kid. In summary, I can only say that the "standard of living" had been decreasing due to a increase in "cost of living".
My philosophy that what a government MUST do, in order to honour the principle that the government serves the people and not the other way round: is that basic fundamental needs MUST BE taken care of. Namely: Health Care, Accommodation and Education.
HEALTH CARE
As far as i'm concerned, I still feel that healthcare is too expensive (for surgeries, operations, etc... the major illness and diseases) for Singaporeans. There MUST BE SUBSTANTIAL, if not, NEAR COMPLETE healthcare subsidies or aids given to Singaporeans - If you want ppl to increase their productivity, then spare them the misery of forking out life savings to save themselves and the tragedy of skipping treatments and delaying operations due to a lack of money. (my mother did delay certain scans or checks because of financial issues).
ACCOMMODATION
The HDB's role was to ensure EVERY SINGAPOREAN have a roof over their head. Unfortunately, there had been news abt ppl living in the streets as well as pitching tents at campsites as a makeshift accommodation. This is particularly disturbing to me.
The entire HDB policy should be reviewed to keep up with times. As now that the country had been pretty developed, the HDB should reinvent and NOT BECOME like another real estate company which is trying their best to siphon money from the citizens. While at the same time, HDB flats SHOULD AND MUST be easily affordable and acquired by local citizens. The current practise is just a delibrate manipulation of the property prices, causing an unneccesary bubble and uncalled for encouragement towards "public property trade" (using HDB apartments as a tool to earn money).
Its a cause and effect - if the property will always rise in value in ridiculous rates, then people will definitely use the opportunity to earn money with it - and ultimately, the people who suffer will be people from my generation and the generations that follow ; BECAUSE it would be impossible to afford an apartment anymore in the future.
I have this vision that, the money paid for the flats would go into their CPF (a way to let ppl own a house while assisting them to save money for retirement) instead of money being deducted for payment for their flats. But perhaps, the owners will not be able to sell the flat, since they virtually paid nothing to stay in that apartment (since their money is "paid" into their CPF).
While this is just a seed idea, not a full policy suggestion, but its a new concept and perspective towards public housing. - The idea is that public housing is to ensure people have a house to stay. While there are definitely loads of people unable to afford their dream house or invest in one, but we should not deprive them of the opportunity to stay in one (albeit them might not be able to sell and earn from it).
The catch is that:
people can choose either to pay like what they are doing now, which gives them to chance to cash in by selling their apartment when the valuation is higher
OR
people can choose to "skip" that "upgrading process", and just be contented living in their dream apartment (while they still pay half the "market rates" of similar category of the apartment) but with their monthly "rent" paid into their CPF to help them save money for retirement or rainy days.
This idea still need improvements and fine tuning, since its just a concept. But I see promises of a better lives for many Singaporeans.
EDUCATION
To me, education is an investment by the country to ensure the sustainability and productivity of the future Singapore. Every single person who dropped out or unable to pursue their studies means a lost opportunity for Singapore to extract the best and maximise the potential of our single most important asset - the people.
To cut story short - a school should be created to teach entrepreneurship and business to those that dropped out of secondary school.
This group of drop outs are extremely isolated and with no "route of advancement" for them in life. ITE requires at least a 'N' level. Every single job out there requires at least an 'O' level, regardless if that job can be even done by a 12 year old. I see this as a failure on the part of the society and the government's policy - likened to the India's caste system.
Why entrepreneurship? Because many of this people just dun like studying/dun have the penchant for memorising/kicked out of school for not being compliant to the system (but many a time is because these kids matured ahead of their time)/misleaded and lack a purpose in life.
Teaching these kids and providing them the skills and perhaps some funds to kick start a small business; these kids with their young and creative minds, could do wonders. Even those who are delinquents, seeing that whatever they do now can earn them cold hard cash; they will definitely find a new and better purpose in life than to just hand around void decks and commit stupid crimes.
I met some people whom graduated from top local schools and these "elites" have a disdain and straightforward dismissal of people studying in Normal Tech Stream (which does not exist in their school) for being delinquents (while based on my experience, the worst lots of the students usually comes from Normal Academic Stream, but others also come from both Express and NT stream) and assumed that neighbourhood school students are inferior to them. These sort of elitism mindset carried by their elites would be brought into the parliament where these Elites comes into power.
I want this "worse than racism" paradigm to be changed.
Getting 'A's in school does not equal to success in life and better contribution to society and country.
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