Spend more on defence, spend less on healthcare

Since taking over from Mr. "$8 bypass" Khaw, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong has been buy introducing a few cosmetic changes to our healthcare system:

• Under the Primary Care Partnership Scheme (PCPS), the qualifying age has been lowered from 65 to 40 to help citizens manage their chronic diseases earlier. The income criteria has been raised from SGD800 (US$616) a month to SGD1,500 (US$1,156) a month
• Subsidies for some higher-cost standard drugs will increase from 50% to 75% for eligible patients with healthcare benefits card
• Increase in Medication Assistance Fund (MAF) for selected drugs, up to subsidies of 75%
• Medifund to be extended to community- and home-based intermediate and long-term care (ILTC) services
• Medisave withdrawal limit for Chronic Disease Management Programme (CDMP) to be increased from SGD300 (US$231) (Medisave300) to SGD400 (US$308) (Medisave400)

Still, the changes will have minimal impact on affordability of healthcare due to a minor problem: The continued lack of facilities and beds.
According to a Straits Times report, despite the long overdue arrival of Khoo Teck Puat hospital, the new kid on the block had to divert patients elsewhere due to chronic bed shortage.

The problem actually lies deep within the PAP hierarchy.
The World Health Organisation puts Singapore's government healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP is a meagre 3.9%, way behind the region's average of 5.4%. Private healthcare expenditure, where patients bear the cost of healthcare, as a proportion of total healthcare expenditure is at 63%, a figure more commonly associated with developing nations. Indeed, this puts us in the league of Vietnam, Philippines and India.

International research firm Business Monitor documents that the government has drastically reduced its burden from 45% in the year 2000 to an all-time low of 32% in 2007.
In other words, as the colloquial saying goes "you die your business", the PAP has cunningly shifted the rising cost of healthcare to Singaporeans.
The situation is even more mind-boggling when you consider that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong opened the floodgates to foreigners as soon as he took office in 2004. Shouldn't increased population growth = higher government healthcare spending?

Singstat recently revealed that there are 1.9 million foreigners living in this red dot. More than one in three people you meet in the street has not taken part in our nation building nor contributed to national service but are enjoying the fruits of Singaporeans' labour, including our over-stretched and under-funded healthcare.

Yet the PAP continues with the archaic behaviour of spending huge amounts of our budget on Defence.
Indeed, we rank 13th out of over 200 countries in terms of the magnitude of our military spending, as a % of GDP. Looking at the table below, most of the high spenders are from the Middle East, a region notorious for religious unrest even till today. What's even more puzzling is that our % spend is so close to the proverbial global superpower and policeman, the United States of America.
While the US Congress is stabilising (and trying to reduce) military spending, still hovering at 4.8% in 2010, our Singapore leaders opted to increase the share to 5.4% in this year's budget.
So we officially spend more as a % of GDP on defence than the USA!!

In dollar terms, that's S$ 3,350,000,000 more than what we spend on healthcare!

I'm not downplaying the signficance of self defence. But in an age where nations are more worried about mortgages and defaults, and where cross border trade is the order of globalisation, how real is the external military threat?
Terrorism is here to stay but wouldn't a self sufficient, small but highly trained regular army do the job?
Not even the battalions of National Servicemen dispatched could find the limping Mas Selamat when he escaped.

And just imagine the Singaporean lives that could be bettered or saved with that extra 3 billion dollars every year?

Parliament finally convened, 5 long months after the General Elections. As usual, like a well-choreographed dance routine, PAP MPs pop up in numbers to endorse the President's opening address.
Dr Tony Tan used the usual catchphrases like "better life for all", "all inclusive society" etc etc.

What I would like to see is Parliament debating on whether it's necessary to spend such exorbitant sums on defence. If reducing the 10 year reservist cycle or duration of each in camp means billions of dollars channeled into healthcare and education, we should do it.

At least this is more productive then spending precious sittings bashing Singaporeans.