Pros and Cons of Healthcare System in Singapore

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Singapore Healthcare System Pros and Cons

Singapore is famous for its exemplary health care standard. It is positioned amongst the best systems in Asia. Both private and public sector services are available to citizens; however, expats often talk about the benefits of each. Still, it is safe to say that both sectors are functioning very well in terms of professionalism and efficiency. Usually, citizens use private entities for basic care and public hospitals for complex and emergency care. As usual, public health care is more affordable than the private sector; still, a lot of people are happy to pay more in exchange of more comfort and shorter waiting time. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of the Singapore healthcare system.

Public health care

Public hospitals as well as outpatient clinics are the most respected and reputed institutions in Singapore. They receive complicated cases from neighboring countries too. However, these facilities as well as the subsidized care are mainly designed to serve permanent residence holders. Expatriates with work permit are not aware of these subsidies; that is why, there is not a big difference in cost between private and public care.

Private health care

Mostly, expats choose private health care due to affordability and better service levels. There is no doubt that the Singapore healthcare model is much better than the US one. There are tons of private hospitals, individual clinics, medical centers, in the city state. You just need to decide which one is better for you or suits your needs. You don’t even need a health insurance to get benefits of private facilities because the basic healthcare expenses are extremely affordable. In spite of this, health insurance is more crucial when it comes to expenses associated with more complex disease or emergency.

Disadvantages

Recently, PM of Singapore, Lee Hsien said “providing good and advanced healthcare is too hard”. Despite the fact that people of Singapore have spent a lot of their hard earned money on taxes to get medical schemes like Medisave and Medishield; the health care expenses are so raised that you still need to spend money on private insurance coverage schemes to get fully covered. The problems as well as the disadvantages of the Singapore healthcare model include over dependency on market pricing, no world class system, poor pricing properties, wastefulness of resources on medical tourism, and a few more.

How Singapore healthcare is better that US healthcare?

The Singapore health care system focuses on preventative care as well as disposing of abuse of medical care, and that is why their system is very effective and successful even with a few flaws. The citizens are highly educated on making healthy choices and maintaining health standards to prevent health care requirements. The government of Singapore likewise ensures that the medical care (basic) is accessible and available to everyone. They have successfully implemented great programs for child immunizations such as like measles, tetanus, and tuberculosis, and screening programs for complex conditions such as cancer and heart disease. Apart from this, dental care is also encouraged by the government, which is almost impossible in the states unless it is a traumatic condition. They use simple and effective strategies and give priority to the healthcare. This is why, their healthcare system is better from many economically strong nations.

2 Responses

  1. amber
    | Reply

    ok so i like it so much but i was looking for more cons the pros

  2. Denish
    | Reply

    Thank you for this great content. Indeed, it is a good comparison; helpful for someone who needs just snapshot of what Singapore’s healthcare system looks like. In addition to the details you provided, it would have been great to talk about key quality indicators like delivery rates, disease rates, waiting times, etc.

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