Are our healthcare and medicines at Polyclinics and government subsidised hospitals really SUBSIDISE? Or is it just playing around with numbers and words just like what happened to HDB flat pricing? Mah BT has been defending his profiteering HDB policies to his last day, insistng that HDB flat is affordable though it cost nearly half a million and 30 years to service one's housing loan. So how does our govt defines subsidised healthcare and medicine?
There has been some commotions in the internet that those so call subsidised healthcare and medicine, are in fact more costly than if you get them private clinic and pharmacy. From my personal experience recently, this is true. We know Guardian Pharmacy is out to make profit. But surprise, surprise - medicines purchase from Guardian cost less than those from Polyclinic. I suffered from rashes and consulted the doctor at a Polyclinic. 20 tablets of Clorphenamine cost $1.40 from the Polyclinic. At Guardian, 50 tablets of the same medicine cost $1.50. So Polyclinic makes more than 100% profit over what Guardian does! Is there any subsidy at all?
They buy in bulk and the discount is there. To a layman subsidy means selling below cost price to us. For example, an item cost $1.50. The Polyclinic got it at $1. The govt folk out 30 cents and it is sold to us at 70 cents. The subsidy is thus 30 cents.
From this incident, looks like they are not even selling it at cost to us, but profiteering tremendously since they are selling way above Guardian Pharmacy price!
Their formula for subsidy must be similar to those used in 'creative accounting' found in those devious financial reporting.
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