In Singapore, good healthcare is accessible to all
Letter from ONG HUI GUAN
Secretariat, National
Longevity Insurance Committee
WE REFER to the letter, “The numbers tell the story” (Oct 4), by Vincent Chia, who cited statistics from the United States and the United Kingdom that showed a positive correlation between socio-economic status and life expectancy.
We thank Vincent Chia for his input, but care should be taken in extrapolating these findings to Singapore. One major factor that can influence life expectancy is access to good healthcare, and this is equally accessible by Singaporeans rich and poor.
This explains why our infant mortality rate — a reliable indicator of general health delivery to the entire population — is one of the lowest in the world.
At present, private insurers in Singapore do not differentiate premiums for annuity products according to one’s earnings or housing type.
Vincent Chia further suggested that most of the very old in Singapore are from the higher socio-economic groups who lived in larger homes. This is not so when compared to the general distribution of households (see table).
More importantly, professional actuaries do not make conclusions about life expectancy based on the distribution of housing types. This would be an inaccurate and wrong approach.
We would like to reassure CPF members that the National Longevity Insurance Scheme will be fair to all participants.
It will consult actuarial experts who use best practices to determine the life expectancy of various groups of Singaporeans. Premiums will be adjusted to equalise groups with different life expectancies.
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