Thread by @royngerng

I repeat again—Singapore does not have universal healthcare the way people in democracies understand it. Out-of-pocket health expenditure in Singapore is one of the highest in the world alongside US. There is 'universal' health insurance but it only covers for less than 5% of ...

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1462850662203547648

... total health expenditure. In 2012, there were more than 2,400 people who had to pay more than S$10,000 for their hospitalization bills. Covid-19 healthcare is free/subsidized in Singapore right now for economic reasons, not for health reasons—the government wants to open up..

... the economy for business, as it has clearly pushed through. And the government is thus no longer interested to subsidize people if people do not abide by their aims of opening up the economy. Singapore does not have free healthcare, it's one of the most expensive in the world

When 'universal' healthcare was introduced a few years ago, it was introduced due to pressure and criticism that as a developed country, Singapore still lacks one. But when you look at the data, this 'universal' healthcare is highly inadequate, and intentionally so.

When you look at Singapore's overall health framework, MediShield (the health insurance scheme) covers for less than 5% of total health expenditure, Medisave is a health savings scheme which covers for about 5% as well but there is no cost sharing in this, which means once an ...

... individual maxes out the individual 'savings' he is mandated to contribute into, then he has to eat into his own family's Medisave to pay for hospital bills. And once the family's savings are maxed out, they have to go through cumbersome procedures to apply for Medifund, ...

... intended for the very poor, but they have to show the income statements of their whole families and when I was working in HIV, this was a major complication, when people chose to skip medication. And if a family has several members who require hospitalization, they have to...

... go through multiple layers of bureaucracy in order to apply for Medifund—which covers for only 1%-2% of total health expenditure. The bulk of the burden is shouldered by out-of-pocket expenditure that Singaporeans have to pay, on top of making contributions to MediShield and

... Medisave, which accounts for about 10% of their wages. Comparing other countries which pay a similar amount of their wages into health insurance, healthcare in these countries are free, but not Singapore. In the end, most of these contributions (90% of the contributions ...

... annually and 99% of the total contributions accumulated) are instead taken by a government investment firm for their own investments, where returns are not returned in full to the healthcare schemes). This investment firm is chaired by the prime minister who earns millions...

... in salary every year. I know all these because I researched about them and then wrote about them, before I got sued by the prime minister for defamation and forced out of my own country. Note that what I wrote about the funds and its routing around were not challenged at all.

So no, stop saying Singapore has 'universal' healthcare. Singapore does not have universal healthcare like other democracies, and Singapore has one of the most expensive out-of-pocket expenditure in the world. People have been known to sell their homes for hospitalization.

Also, Singapore is authoritarian and controls the media. Independent media like me have been sued or charged. The government no longer provides transparent data on these issues in parliament, and when it talks up the health schemes in publicity, it does not use numbers.

This is why wrongful information continues to be propagated when you read government sources & Singapore is too small for people to bother to do analyses on, so there's little independent sources you can read. But Singapore's society & healthcare is highly unequal, just like US.

For more context, below are 3 articles with all the data & hyperlinks of what Singaporeans contribute in healthcare, what they are getting back & how much the government takes to invest without returning.

international.thenewslens.com/article/68844

international.thenewslens.com/article/140098

international.thenewslens.com/article/140291

One additional point—the danger of repeating such propaganda of authoritarian regimes when they promote their own social protection schemes is that we legitimize these authoritarian regimes, when their systems clearly do not cater to the needs of citizens.