4 ms·
In Singapore, the government forces you to deposit a percentage of your income into an HSA, and then they tell you what you can and cannot spend that money on.
by noelsusman 7y ago
In Singapore, the government forces you to deposit a percentage of your income into an HSA, and then they tell you what you can and cannot spend that money on. You're only allowed to use that money to buy government-approved drugs, for example, and it's not like the FDA where they're just testing for effectiveness and safety. Also, most hospitals are owned by the government, most doctors are government employees, and most hospital visits are mostly paid for by the government.
Price transparency is a relatively minor part of what makes the Singapore health system work.
- shantly 7y agoI'm not aware of a single advanced-economy state (I usually shorthand this "OECD" but Singapore's not a member, AFAIK) that doesn't use price controls, explicitly or de facto (monopsony), in their health care system. Price controls, non-profit status requirement for insurers, and a non-ruinously-expensive "public option" seem to be common factors in the most "free market" (relatively speaking) systems of our peer states. Despite Obamacare we've achieved zero of those, nor have we opted to go further "left" to mimic any other proven-to-control-costs-and-deliver-care system.