Saturday, January 18, 2014
Straight from the Source
"Medi-Save is, I think the U.S. would call it, health savings account." Khaw Boon Wan, Minister of Health of Singapore. The only difference that I can see is that the Singapore accounts are mandatory and the U.S. ones are voluntary (and , no, I would have absolutely zero problem making them mandatory in America - a stance that would obviously put me at odds with hard-core anarcho-libertarians and underscore the fact that I am not a "true believer" but much more of a pragmatist).
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4 comments:
"The only difference that I can see is that the Singapore accounts are mandatory and the U.S. ones are voluntary"
That's a huge difference...unless you think there is little difference between mandatory health insurance and voluntary health insurance.
Mandatory saving of money... I find a lot more acceptable than the Obamacare idea of forcing families to divert part of their budget away from food/housing/college to products they may or may not need.
I've never had a problem with the concept of an overall mandate (and I certainly don't have a problem with this Singapore mandate), Jerry. My problem with Obamacare is with a lot of the other components; the specific mandates (maternity coverage for women with hysterectomies, etc.), the cronyism/waivers, the perverse incentives, the potential of a death spiral, the financing aspect, etc..
This seems like the fairest system, dmarks. Medi-Save forces young people to contribute but it doesn't ream them. Medi-Shield is a catastrophic plan that keeps them from becoming bankrupt. And Medi-Fund is a provision for taking care of the indigent. I personally think that we could do something similar and if we have to subsidize hospitals to get it done, I could live with that (better than bailing out banks and insurance companies).
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