HEALTH........its not only painful for the patient....it also weighs upon our wallets

The health issue is a big challenge for any nations. The SARS outbreak has once demostrated the power of such an epidemic. Can our country's health system take an attack of such scale once more? There are worries of a next wave of pandemic more deadly than SARS. Hence, will there be enough medicial supplies, doctors, nurses and other related services?

The cost of health care is rising every-year. Public health-care costs rise even higher. The public sector needs to retain and attract doctors, lest they all join private practice. There is also a deficit in the number of nurses. The cost of medicine and medication increases as more powerful doses are needed to ward off and cure modern infections.

For us, average Singaporeans, we all hope that the government can help us to alleviate the medicial bills burden. The government has recently revamped the medicial insurance in Singapore.

MEDISAVE
Medisave is a national medical savings scheme which helps individuals put aside part of their income into their Medisave Accounts to meet their future personal or immediate family's hospitalisation, day surgery and certain outpatient expenses.

MEDISHIELD
Medishield is a low-cost catastrophic medical insurance scheme which helps Medisave account holders and their dependants meet the cost of treatment for serious or prolonged illnesses. Singaporeans can use their Medisave savings to pay the premiums of Medishield or Medisave-approved insurance schemes available in the private sector.

MEDIFUND
Medifund is an endowment fund set up by the Singapore Government as a safety net to help needy Singapore citizen who are not able to pay for their heavily subsidised medical care at restructured hospital.



No doubt, the Government do provide safety nets for everyone in Singapore. However, the adequency of it remains highly debateable. Besides relying on the initiatives by the Government, one must also get other types of medical and board insurance or commonly known as Health Insurance from the insurance companies like Great Eastern or Prudential.

For an amount every month, you can be covered for surgical, room and board charges and other medical fees. It is vital to do so as this is to prevent ONE admission to hosptial that can possibly wipe out all your savings.

One other point to note is pertaining to illness like cancer and other long-term illnesses, such will not only cause the patient to lose the ability to work to his/her potential and also the treatment will be very expensive and it can go on for quite some time. Hence, the family will have to work out quite a large sum of money. This is when proper insurance planning really alleviate such pains.

Protection is a must........even if it sounds like a cliche.......BETTER BE SAFE THAN BE SORRY!!!!!!!