Singapore Democrats
The Singapore Democrats embarked on a ground campaign, starting Sunday 10 June 2012, to spread the word on The SDP National Healthcare Plan which we launched in April this year.
Members visited the Tanjong Pagar GRC and Yuhua SMC to talk to residents about the alternative healthcare system and to explain to them the advantages it has over the current PAP’s 3M scheme (Medisave, Medishield and Medifund).
The information was carried in the latest edition of The New Democrat, our flagship publication. It contained an easy-to-follow guide to our healthcare plan.
This includes a cartoon illustration of a patient consulting a doctor and relating his woes of not being able to afford medical treatment.
Vincent Wijeysingha spreading the message
The doctor explains the fundamentals of the SDP plan where we propose scrapping the 3Ms and returning the Medisave money to the accounts of CPF members.
In place of the Medisave, the SDP will set up the National Health Investment Fund (NHIF) into which Singaporeans contribute, using our CPF funds, an amount much smaller that what we currently pay into our Medisave accounts. (For more details of our plan, see here and here) The NHIF will then pay for 90 percent of all our hospital bills.
Patients pay the remaining 10 percent capped at $2,000 per year. In other words, if a bill is, let’s say, $30,000, the patient will pay no more than $2,000. The NHIF will also pay $10 whenever we consult the GP, both at public and private clinics.
Our aim is to make healthcare in Singapore universal and affordable, and in this way, establish a caring people-oriented healthcare system instead of the current one based on a profit motive.
Residents seem to appreciate this as many were seen to pore over The New Democrat as we moved from food centre to food centre in the constituencies.
Studying the SDP healthcare plan
The party will make this a major campaign platform over the next few years going into the next election. Much time and effort is needed to explain our proposal to the voters so that they will vote for the SDP in enough numbers to effect healthcare reform in this country. There is much to do and the Democrats are wasting no time in getting our message to the ground.
The latest edition of our newspaper also carries updates of our operations and other developments in the past year following the 2011 general elections.
We will be going for another round of walkabout on 24 June 2012, two Sundays from now, to get The New Democrat into the hands of the electrorate. We cannot wait until just before the next elections to do this. We must start now.
But we need all the help we can get to make our message strong and effective. We ask our fellow Singaporeans to help out. Please email us at sdp@yoursdp.org to volunteer. We can effect change only if we work hard.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
More walkabout photos at SDP’s facebook photo album.