Tag Archives: Healthcare Reform
The challenge of going beyond healthcare to health
‘Business model innovation’ is all the craze in the commercial healthcare world, what with increasing consumerization, ‘digitalization’ and payer pricing pressures. It’s also become clear that there are fundamental differences between the ecosystems for health as opposed to healthcare. In reviewing the recent Singapore budget debates on the health sector, I felt going ‘Beyond Healthcare […]
Healthcare Productivity, Changing the Model of Care and the Role of GPs
This will be a long post and so apologies in advance. I wanted to be transparent and share the correspondence I had with the TODAY journalist who was obtaining perspectives for a ‘Big Read’ on healthcare productivity. This was published yesterday in a long piece titled “The Big Read: Beyond a jobs boost, healthcare sector […]
“Why Singapore needs foreign patients” ST 22 July 2015- Follow Up Responses
My recent commentary “Why Singapore must have foreign patients” (Straits Times 22 July 2015) created quite a stir with many lambasting the views presented or thanking me for raising issues which had been difficult in this political climate to voice publicly especially if one was in the public sector. Two issues are probably worth clarifying […]
MEDISHIELD LIFE: IMMEDIATE REACTIONS
The MediShield Life Review Committee’s final report and recommendations dominated the headlines over the weekend. This was perhaps not wholly unexpected as these are the most major reforms to Singapore’s healthcare system since Medisave in the early 1980s. Various online commentators including Bertha Henson and Leong Sze Hian have offered their interpretations while the mainstream […]
ever Increasing Integrated (MediShield) Plan premiums
Response to media queries on rising Integrated Plans’ premiums in general and a specific query about private doctors offering ‘unnecessary treatments’ to generate more income: 1. For insurers to be financially viable, the premiums collected must be more than the claims paid out. This ‘medical loss ratio’ as it is described in the industry is […]
Obamacare and MediShield Life- TODAY 15 Nov 2013
I chaired a session on Obamacare and what implications there are for MediShield Life in NUS yesterday and later participated in a panel discussion on the topic. Must say it was pure coincidence that the Ministry of Health Singapore announced that it would reveal the names of the members appointed to the MediShield Life review […]
Launch of ‘Myth or Magic: The Singapore Healthcare System’
The book ‘Myth or Magic: The Singapore Healthcare System’ will be launched officially on 5 Oct 2013, 2.30 pm at the Arts House (Old Parliament House). We have brought together an eclectic panel to discuss the future of Singapore healthcare. Our panelists include prominent blogger Alex Au, professor of public policy Tikki Pang from the […]
Breathing ‘life’ into MediShield Life (Straits Times 23 Sept 2013)
Since ‘MediShield Life’ entered the public lexicon a month ago, commentators and citizens alike have raised concerns on everything from the setting of premiums to the fairness of the healthy paying for the unhealthy to mitigating the dangers of ‘abuse’. As the Ministry of Health engages in public consultation, it is worth stepping back and […]
How should Singapore’s Healthcare System Change (Straits Times 7 Sept 2013)
It was hard to offer excerpts from my upcoming book ‘Myth or Magic: The Singapore Healthcare System’ within the word limit constraints of a newspaper. The Straits Times editors chose the chapter ‘How should Singapore change?’ and asked initially for the over 10,000 words to be condensed into 1,500 words. I tried but could not […]
Insights Health Associates 
Building a Health Promoting and Disease Preventing Ecosystem with sustainable business models
In an earlier commentary for TODAY, one of Singapore’s national newspapers, I commented that whilst the Ministry of Health’s exhortation to go ‘Beyond Healthcare to Health’ was laudable and a necessary pivot of the Singapore model, there did not exist today business models that encourage health promotion and disease prevention. Instead, as with most health […]