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Singapore has made four shifts to healthcare system: PM

Xinhua, February 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday that the country has made four shifts to its approach to delivering good healthcare as demographics and disease patterns change.

Speaking at the Universal Health Coverage Ministerial Meeting in Singapore, Lee said that Singapore faces the same challenges and difficulties as other societies in delivering good healthcare.

Singapore has adopted a three-pronged approach to public health. The first is a focus on public health. The second is a system that "marries the best of a privatized healthcare system with the best aspects of a single-payer model," with government hospitals restructured to become autonomous, non-profit accounting entities. Third, it tries to keep a balance in healthcare financing between individuals, insurance and government, with official subsidies and individuals' compulsory savings in the form of Central Provident Fund accounts.

Singapore also faces the challenges arising from an ageing population, which means an increase in the demand for healthcare, and an increase of diseases of affluence rather than poverty, such as more instances of diabetes and obesity.

Lee said that, in response, Singapore has made four shifts to the healthcare system. Authorities are now providing more comprehensive support for outpatient treatment, in the form of a scheme to subsidize treatment for lower or middle-class Singaporeans at private general practitioners.

It is also replacing MediShield with the universal, compulsory MediShield Life insurance scheme, which will "give better protection from growing bill sizes."

In addition to that, it is also building community hospitals and improving access to general practitioners and polyclinics in efforts aimed to "right-site" services to give people better, more affordable care in their communities.

The government is also encouraging Singaporeans to take better care of their health by efforts like promoting healthier food choices, active ageing and providing more "healthy lifestyle" amenities such as cycling connectors and exercise corners.

Lee said that the insurance premiums for Medishield Life will be higher because it is a more encompassing scheme, and the government is subsidizing the premiums to keep them affordable, especially for the lower-income group.

"But because the premiums are going to be higher than before, it is necessary to make MediShield Life compulsory, because with higher premiums there will be more temptation for people to opt out and come back into the healthcare system. And the healthcare system cannot refuse to treat them," he said.

Lee acknowledged that maintaining good healthcare is a " continuing challenge."

"... we have developed our own approach, and it works reasonably well for us," he told the audience, which included World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan. Endi