From December onwards, all newborn Singaporeans and Permanent Residents will be offered MediShield coverage.
The Health Ministry will also facilitate coverage for Singaporean and Permanent Resident (PR) youths from the middle of next year.
Below is a story which I get from ChannelNewsAsia website…
Just to explain on the importance of hospitalisation insurance….
Sulaiman Azim is a healthy 11-year-old.
But when he was younger, he was often sick and was hospitalised three times – once for pneumonia and twice for viral infection.
The first in-patient episode when he was just 9 months old, left his parents with a hefty S$17,000 bill.
Without any insurance coverage, they had to foot the cost themselves.
Haslina Abdul Majeed, Sulaiman’s mom, says: “We had no choice but to use S$10,000 of our savings to pay for the hospital bills and S$7,000 was deducted from our Medisave account.
Of course it was difficult because we didn’t think that he would be in hospital for 25 days.
But we had no choice at that time because due to the urgency of his case, we had to admit him to a private hospital instead of a government hospital.”
Madam Haslina learnt from her experience and soon insured her son Sulaiman.
She says: “After the first hospitalisation episode, he was hospitalised again when he was 3 and 5 years old.
But for those hospitalisation stays, when the bills came up to S$5,000 and S$7,000 respectively, we did not have to fork out cash because they were fully covered by the insurance.
I would urge all parents to buy insurance for their children at the point they were born.
This is because we really don’t know what’s going to happen – are they going to fall sick along the way, things like that.
So when the government came up with the initiative of encouraging or even ensuring that all kids are covered when they were born, I thought it was a good move.
I wish that it had started a long time ago when my first child was born.”
Madam Haslina has since also insured her two other children from birth.
My question to you… Have you done so?
My other related posts that may interest you:
- Why You Must Get Your Hospitalisation Insurance Plan COMPLETE With The Rider….
- NTUC Income Vivolife Is An Insurance Plan That All Singaporeans Must Have….
- Top 5 Reasons Why You Must Have Insurance
30. October 2007 at 9:26 pm
well for a start, i’ve got myself insured.. my child?, erm, i’ve got none for now, but if ever i’m grant a achild i’ll surely insured him/her the moment that cutie is born!
30. October 2007 at 11:49 pm
Fina J. >>> Thanks Fina… When I did a financial needs analysis with my clients, it surprised me that quite a number of them have endowment policies, and yet is not covered in terms of hospitalisation.
When questioned, they mention to me that they dont need hospitalisation insurance coverage, and the premiums will be “wasted” if nothing happen to them.
Let me reframe this incorrect perception.
Just for a small premium, deductible from your medisave, you can alleviate the future challenges when health misfortunes were to came knocking on the door.
For those who are hospitalised, and are not insured, I will say Sayonara…
Singapore hospitalisation cost is already very expensive and increase year by year…and if you do not get yourself covered,it will be a financial strain for you…
A definite one…
Some people say, get “covered” at a later age…
I will disagree…
The acceptance rate for hospitalisation plan is very stringent…
Unlike other policies, where they can still accept people with health problems by adding loading charge, hospitalisation insurance is different.
If you are overweight, have diabetes and some other unfortunate illnesses, you cant get the Enhanced Incomeshield which I always proposed others to get.
Its better to get yourself covered, when you are still OKAY, then gamble the chance in the future!