Did Lee Hsien Loong Ever Said Such a Thing?!
Wanted to blog this sooner, but been getting home quite late and was watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and playing online games most of the time I was logged in to the internet. Anyway, this incident is but a couple days' old so it is still quite fresh.
What happened was this man came with his maid to collect medicine. Medicine was for the maid so I obviously could not ask her for NRIC number. I did what a person with commonsense would do: ask for the work permit. The employer got huffy and asked why I wanted to check the work permit when the registration counter already checked the work permit. For identification purpose you idiot! Do I look like I am on first name terms with you and your maid?! I need to make sure I am dispensing the correct medication to the correct person.
Anyway to cut the chase, when I requested payment for the medication, the employer told me his maid did not have money. He almost did not want to pay for his maid's medication until I told him flatly that I could not give free medicine because the hospital is not a charitable organisation. I can let them have the medicine and send the bill later, but that does not mean I will do it every time. Correction. I am usually lenient to foreign workers the first time they tell me they do not have sufficient money. I would send the bill to their companies, but I would also remind them to either bring sufficient money or a letter of guarantee from their company the next time. However, should they try to get free medicine from me the second time they are only going to get 3 days' worth of medication. Nothing more until they pay up.
Back to the stupid man. After he grudgingly paid up for the medicine, he asked me if I am going to deny medicine to patients who are poor and have no money for their medicine. If the patients are really poor, there are ways to help them eg. getting their doctors to make a recommendation to see a medical social worker and apply for financial aids, usually Medifund.
It was a poor attempt at trying to draw parallelism between poor citizens and his maid. His maid is holding a work permit, and to hold a work permit means the maid must be holding a job in Singapore. If she does not even have money for medicine that cost less than $10 then he is either not paying her or not giving her a decent enough pay.
After hearing my little explanation on how poor people can get funds to help them with their medicine, he haughtily told me he would bring his maid to see a medical social worker to get the Medifund. This man is really stupid. Medifund is for citizens, not foreign workers! However, that is not to say the government does not care for the foreign workers working in Singapore. Currently foreign workers do enjoy some subsidy from the government when they seek medical treatment at polyclinics, restructured hospitals and some of the private clinics. This unfortunately is not going to last. After all which government does not protect its own citizens first. With limited resources, it is natural for our government to reserve the subsidy for Singaporeans rather than foreign workers. In the process of doing that the government also tries to make sure foreign workers continue to have affordable medical care. And this is why the government is working out a bill to make it compulsory for employers to provide healthcare insurance coverage for foreign workers under their employment.
The twit when told his maid does not qualify for Medifund whined that it is not fair for the foreign workers. He then tried his stupid parallelism trick again. This time he asked me how would I feel if I am overseas on holiday and something happens which resulted in me being hospitalised, and the hospital denies treatment because I have no money, and no passport for identification. Well, that will never happen because I never travel overseas without insurance to cover my arse.
What came next was the most ridiculous thing I had heard thus far, and I am going to quote what transpired between me and him. Words in italics are my thoughts/ comments.
Idiot: You know that who ah, Lee Kuan Yew's son? The prime minister?
Me: Lee Hsien Loong. You call yourself a Singaporean but don't know the name of our current PM?! And you still dare to talk to me in such a haughty attitude?!
Idiot: Yah, Lee Hsien Loong. Two and a half years ago in one of his speeches, he said nothing in this world is free (pause for dramatic effect), except healthcare. And that is according to WHO standards.
Me: (sarcastically) Really. I have not heard of it. Start using your brain if you want to convince me that Lee Hsien Loong, henceforth abbreviated to LHL, would ever say such a stupid thing on national TV. It is because we are now on the issue of healthcare that you claim LHL said healthcare should be free. If you are in NTUC you would claim LHL said nothing in this world is free except food! And don't bring the WHO into this. Anybody with a brain knows that providing free healthcare is the surest way to bring down the whole healthcare system. And unless you don't mind the government increasing the personal income tax by another 10-20 percentage point, and GST to 10% or more, do not even talk to me about free healthcare nor subsidising all medicines for subsidised patients.
Idiot: You never heard of it? He said that. LHL said healthcare should be free. In fact I owe the hospital $300+ in bill. I never paid up. I send all my bills to him.
Me: (raised an eyebrow) You send your bills to LHL? Way to go bugger. Such a typical Singaporean attitude. Throw all the problems to the government instead of taking ownership and solving the problem yourself.
Idiot: (haughtily) Yah. I send all my bills to LHL. I annexed all the bills to him so he can pay them for me.
Me: (Gave a mirthless snigger) Right... I am sure it gets thrown out with the daily trash before it even has a chance to reach LHL's secretary much less LHL.
Luckily i had another prescription to dispense. Gave me the opportunity to walk away without appearing rude.
As a side note:
What happened was this man came with his maid to collect medicine. Medicine was for the maid so I obviously could not ask her for NRIC number. I did what a person with commonsense would do: ask for the work permit. The employer got huffy and asked why I wanted to check the work permit when the registration counter already checked the work permit. For identification purpose you idiot! Do I look like I am on first name terms with you and your maid?! I need to make sure I am dispensing the correct medication to the correct person.
Anyway to cut the chase, when I requested payment for the medication, the employer told me his maid did not have money. He almost did not want to pay for his maid's medication until I told him flatly that I could not give free medicine because the hospital is not a charitable organisation. I can let them have the medicine and send the bill later, but that does not mean I will do it every time. Correction. I am usually lenient to foreign workers the first time they tell me they do not have sufficient money. I would send the bill to their companies, but I would also remind them to either bring sufficient money or a letter of guarantee from their company the next time. However, should they try to get free medicine from me the second time they are only going to get 3 days' worth of medication. Nothing more until they pay up.
Back to the stupid man. After he grudgingly paid up for the medicine, he asked me if I am going to deny medicine to patients who are poor and have no money for their medicine. If the patients are really poor, there are ways to help them eg. getting their doctors to make a recommendation to see a medical social worker and apply for financial aids, usually Medifund.
It was a poor attempt at trying to draw parallelism between poor citizens and his maid. His maid is holding a work permit, and to hold a work permit means the maid must be holding a job in Singapore. If she does not even have money for medicine that cost less than $10 then he is either not paying her or not giving her a decent enough pay.
After hearing my little explanation on how poor people can get funds to help them with their medicine, he haughtily told me he would bring his maid to see a medical social worker to get the Medifund. This man is really stupid. Medifund is for citizens, not foreign workers! However, that is not to say the government does not care for the foreign workers working in Singapore. Currently foreign workers do enjoy some subsidy from the government when they seek medical treatment at polyclinics, restructured hospitals and some of the private clinics. This unfortunately is not going to last. After all which government does not protect its own citizens first. With limited resources, it is natural for our government to reserve the subsidy for Singaporeans rather than foreign workers. In the process of doing that the government also tries to make sure foreign workers continue to have affordable medical care. And this is why the government is working out a bill to make it compulsory for employers to provide healthcare insurance coverage for foreign workers under their employment.
The twit when told his maid does not qualify for Medifund whined that it is not fair for the foreign workers. He then tried his stupid parallelism trick again. This time he asked me how would I feel if I am overseas on holiday and something happens which resulted in me being hospitalised, and the hospital denies treatment because I have no money, and no passport for identification. Well, that will never happen because I never travel overseas without insurance to cover my arse.
What came next was the most ridiculous thing I had heard thus far, and I am going to quote what transpired between me and him. Words in italics are my thoughts/ comments.
Idiot: You know that who ah, Lee Kuan Yew's son? The prime minister?
Me: Lee Hsien Loong. You call yourself a Singaporean but don't know the name of our current PM?! And you still dare to talk to me in such a haughty attitude?!
Idiot: Yah, Lee Hsien Loong. Two and a half years ago in one of his speeches, he said nothing in this world is free (pause for dramatic effect), except healthcare. And that is according to WHO standards.
Me: (sarcastically) Really. I have not heard of it. Start using your brain if you want to convince me that Lee Hsien Loong, henceforth abbreviated to LHL, would ever say such a stupid thing on national TV. It is because we are now on the issue of healthcare that you claim LHL said healthcare should be free. If you are in NTUC you would claim LHL said nothing in this world is free except food! And don't bring the WHO into this. Anybody with a brain knows that providing free healthcare is the surest way to bring down the whole healthcare system. And unless you don't mind the government increasing the personal income tax by another 10-20 percentage point, and GST to 10% or more, do not even talk to me about free healthcare nor subsidising all medicines for subsidised patients.
Idiot: You never heard of it? He said that. LHL said healthcare should be free. In fact I owe the hospital $300+ in bill. I never paid up. I send all my bills to him.
Me: (raised an eyebrow) You send your bills to LHL? Way to go bugger. Such a typical Singaporean attitude. Throw all the problems to the government instead of taking ownership and solving the problem yourself.
Idiot: (haughtily) Yah. I send all my bills to LHL. I annexed all the bills to him so he can pay them for me.
Me: (Gave a mirthless snigger) Right... I am sure it gets thrown out with the daily trash before it even has a chance to reach LHL's secretary much less LHL.
Luckily i had another prescription to dispense. Gave me the opportunity to walk away without appearing rude.
As a side note:
- I know I defended our government a fair bit in this post, but I do not support PAP.
- PM Lee, if you ever have the time to surf the net and come across this post, can I make a small request? No not pay my internet and phone bills. Satisfy my curiosity. I want to know if you ever helped the idiot pay his hospital bills. LOL
posted by Yamosh at 11:27 PM
3 Comments:
That blood idiot. Can afford to employ a maid (& pay hundreds in tax) but no $10 to keep her healthy? Not as if he's at an expensive private clinic but at the public hospital.
Had he read the papers that other citizens got irritated when it was reported that foreigners got the same level of subsidy? Darn! All that subsidy i haven't used actually went to keeping such an idiot healthy...
Please, if you can afford to go for a vacation, you can pay for your medical fees. Wah lau eh, not enough to shit in your own backyard, must go shit somewhere else and let all of us lose face is it? I'm sure that even if one does get into an incident that left the passport missing (if not what idiot wouldn't bring along his passport?!) & him needing hospitalisation, our embassy will help. Of course, he may irritate them so much that they claim that he's not one of us...
Please ask the hospital to create a new way of calculating & chasing late payments, say credit card-style interests if people can well afford to pay for themselves. Late payments will snowball and soon banks will come knocking on such their doors. Way to increase revenue and make sure such scum learn to pay for themselves. It's always frustrating that people refuse to pay for their treatment when they can well afford to.
Maybe the PM Office should take note. His $300 bad debt should be chased back n put to better use -- perhaps paying a reporter to dig out a collection of such non-payment stories and publish it?
Gee, sorry, long comment again...
That's the problem with healthcare. We cannot push too hard else we would become too mercenary. The line is very fine. We want to do all we can to save human lives, but the fact is we cannot do this for free. Even charitable organisations need money to function that's why they get donations.
Whether the public like it or not, the hospital is also concerned about the bottomline.
Yah, agree. That's a bit more obvious here since we're private sector. But some pp either just cannot understand or don't use their brain. Like that person who wrote to Straits Times a few days ago, asking SBS & SMRT to do their bit for "corporate citizenry" by extending the senior citizens' concession hours. Hallo, they may provide public transport, but are listed companies which have increased bus & train fares for 2 consecutive years already.
It's always about the bottomline. This is not a welfare state. Argh, I'm always pissed when pp who can well afford something try to go for welfare.
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