Janil Puthucheary made complete nonsense when he asserted that it is not valid to compare Medishield’s 63% loss ratio (payout) against American health insurance’s 80 to 85% loss ratio (payout) because Medishield is public and not-for-profit whereas US medical insurance is private and for-profit scheme. Any idiot will know that all else being equal, America’s for-profit scheme should end up with a lower payout while Singapore’s supposedly not-for-profit scheme should end up with a higher payout but the reality is the other way around.
Dr Puthucheary warned that Medishield will become insolvent if payouts are more than premiums collected. But that didn’t address Mr Gerald Giam’s concern about low Medishield payout when Medishield capital adequacy ratio was already 40% above MAS requirements. Does Dr Puthucheary know that the targeted capital adequacy ratio is 200%?
Both he and Health Minister Gan Kim Yong argued that it is very difficult to estimate health-care costs. In that case, how does Minister Gan come up with a Health Ministry budget every year? Full story
