As my family gathered around the table today for a family bonding steamboat lunch at home to celebrate both mother's day and my dad's birthday, our casual intermittent topics of everything under the sky suddenly took a turn towards the topic of quality of life in Australia (as opposed to Singapore's).
You see, my Malaysian cousin (let's call him MC), who studied in Australia, is here working in Singapore and living with us while he awaits his Australian PR application to go through. He was quizzed on his concurrent application for both Singapore and Australian PRs, his ultimate intention of migration, his reasons, and so on and so forth.
Below's re-enactment is not 100% accurately replicated but the gist of it is there...
Fievel: Hey, are you going to choose Australia or Singapore if you get both the PRs? Btw is it easy for you to get PR here?
MC: It's damn easy to get here! Heard that 3 months I can get already. Australian PR takes qualifying and then about 12 to 18 months to get processed, but I'll probably choose Aus anyway.
Fievel: Why?
MC: Work-life balance is non-existent here. My friends there pretty much close shop at the office by around 4pm, here I don't see the daylight.
Fievel: Yeah, plus I heard you get a lot more for your money on housing, like 5 times bigger in size for housing of comparable distance from downtown, yea?
MC: Ya, but taxes are higher there also lah
Fievel: But I hear you get your medical care nearly all paid for and taken care of, no worries on that...
MC: Yup. The govt takes care of it. Hey, your brother is studying there now, he can apply for PR and sponsor you and your family to move over....
....At this point my dad joined in the conversation and got all excited about the possibility of us living in a country that takes care of his medical expenses if he is Australian and one where he can buy a car for a few grand and swap his HDB for a landed and have change to spare which basically adds up to a pretty decent retirement dreamland...
Now it is not my intention to bore anyone with what transpired during my family's steamboat lunch. Afterwards, I decided to do a bit of googling on health care policies in Australia and Singapore and I was real lucky to find a comprehensive and objective study as linked here.
This report was published in Hongkong in 2006 and it was a research on health care policies in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. As they always seem to be the case, public policies are never easy to slice, dice and analyse, much less criticise; (good rhymes!) BUT I'll like to think that I prefer the Australian version to ours here in Singapore. Below are some excerpts but I plead that you read the full paper as it is not my intention to mislead by selective omission.
Excerpts
...The guiding principles of health care policies in the selected places all ensure that their citizens will not be denied health care services. However, they adopt somewhat different philosophical bases. Both Australia and New Zealand emphasize collective responsibility to ensure individuals’ accessibility to health care services. On the other hand, Singapore emphasizes individual responsibility for accessing health care services and the government is the last resort for those who are unable to pay...
...Both Australians and New Zealanders are eligible for receiving public hospital services free of charge if they do not choose doctors in receiving treatment. Singaporeans bear at least 20% of the cost because the maximum government subsidy for the lowest-class public hospital wards is 80% of the cost. Patients may have to resort to out-of-pocket payments, savings in the Medisave Accounts and approved health insurance plans or a combination of them to cover their share of hospital expenses...
...In Australia and Singapore, patients who choose their preferred doctors can still receive some subsidy from the government. For Australians choosing to be treated as private patients in either public or private hospitals, Medicare pays 75% of the Medicare Benefits Schedule fee for services and procedures provided by the treating doctor. In Singapore, the government subsidizes 20% of the cost of B1-class hospital wards, with B1-class patients being able to choose doctors...
...With respect to private health insurance, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development study entitled Private Health Insurance in Australia: A Case Study suggests that the insured benefits from the Australian system as they can choose between private and public hospitals. In addition, they benefit from the timeliness of hospital care offered in private hospitals, in particular elective surgery, as the waiting list for such services in the public sector is long...
I have read other blogs and forums where Singaporeans differ on their views on social welfare systems suitable for Singapore. I just want to say my piece here. The bulk of Singaporeans can be considered as belonging to the middle class, whatever that means. If you are one day (touch-wood) struck with stage 2 cancer, your critical illness private insurance is not going to cover your expenses because it is not stage 3 yet. Do you go to Mount Elizabeth (private) or do you wait in line for your NUH appointment (public)? The medisave and medishield amount to nothing when you have cancer. Using individual saving (medisave) for medical expenses is ridiculous.
Yes I read that we have Medifund - that will provide us with access to medical care if we are truly unable to afford it. That means you have to go from middle-class to flat broke while dragging your family down with you with medical expenses before you get to the handout. In Singapore when a retiree gets cancer, the children (and grand-children) put their house on mortgage to pay the treatment; indeed it does not cost much to the state. In 2002-3, Singapore's govt spent 3.7% of our GDP on health care as opposed to Australia's 9.7% and NZ's 8.7%. It doesn't matter if our taxation is direct or indirect, our GDP lends weight to our public revenue. Why not spend more on our sick and needy fellow citizens? Ask yourself, could your life become a mess all of a sudden when your dad suffers a stroke and requires ongoing nursing care, or your mum gets struck with kidney failure and requires huge sums for dialysis. Would you be more concerned only then?
I guess my point is, I prefer to pay more taxes but know that there is lesser suffering going on in my country. No body nor family has to go through hell just to stay alive. Leave no one behind. Retire in peace. I think it is better that way.