What determines the goals of healthcare financing in Singapore

Abstract

In early 2013, Singapore’s Finance and Health Ministers announced that the healthcare financing system was being reviewed with a view to having the government shoulder a larger share of healthcare costs. The government’s share of national health expenditure would increase from the current one third to 40 percent, or more. As part of this review, the Health Ministry would also study how insurance could be used to finance a greater portion of healthcare costs. To provide perspective, MediShield, the basic catastrophic insurance scheme administered by the government, had covered only one to two percent of the national healthcare expenditure between 2002 and 2011. What are the factors that drive healthcare financing policies in Singapore? And how could the healthcare financing system that was in place at the time of the Ministers’ announcements have been improved in a manner both politically feasible and fiscally sustainable?