Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Insecurity

In recent years, more and more S'poreans are experiencing a sense of insecurity about their future. Unless one belongs to the rich elite class, ordinary citizens are unsure if they could meet the escalating cost of living and healthcare expenses during their retirement.

This happen inspite of a life time of saving and the various policies the govt under PAP have implemented over the years. Sigh - most of us are entangled and trapped by the CPF web with no light in sight.

All these funds set up under CPF over the years show that the whole framework is a shamble. CPF Board tries to patch up pot holes when it appears by introducing more complicated policies which resulted in all of our hard earn saving being tied down forever.

Going by the list - it is mind boggling and common sense tell us all is not right. Yet the PAP keep coming up with more shitty policies. The latest being CPF Life.

1) CPF Ordinary A/C - most of our fund is suck up by what the PAP term 'affordable' public housing which cost up half a million.

2) Special A/C - this saving is suppose to be 'untouchable' so that it could be transfer to retirement A/C. But CPF relax the ruling. This could have contributed to the statistic that many could not even meet the CPF minimum sum.

3) Retirement A/C - all our saving is lock up in this A/C upon reaching 55. The minimum sum keeps increasing every year but the interest rate remains stagnant. Worst, it is well below the inflation rate for decades. Those who are in dire situation will be in for hard time as they have to wait for 10 years before their own money is being dish out to them in merge sum monthly.

4) Medisave A/C - this is to cover healthcare cost NOT cover by Medishield (insurance). Makes one wonder why on earth we buy Medishield when most of the time it does not cover our healthcare needs ! The minimum sum is $36K. With medical cost so high, this could easily be wiped out with just one spell of serious health treatment. The situation is worst for those with aged parents to care for. Their parents' healthcare cost would likely emptied their medisave account.

5) Medishield - even opting for the 'lowest' payment plan, the excess clause is so high that most of the time one is unable to make any claim for medishield. Besides they also need you to be hospitalised. Thus unless your bill hits the $1K mark, any claim is unlikely. For those not well off, a bill of $300 is expensive, yet there will be no relieve in sight.

6) Eldershield
- the criteria for payout is even more stringent as one must be unable to perform at least 3 of daily tasks (eg bathing, dressing..etc). Being not able to do one of normal daily task is bad enough and they want us to be total invalid before one can make a claim. Sigh.

7) Eldershield supplement plan
-they realise the payout in Eldershield is too little to they get us to pump in more money to 'enhance' the payout. Clear sign of lousy planning and implementation.

8) CPF Life - this is their ultimate weapon to retain our money forever. After so many different CPF accounts and insurance shields - we are not shielded at all. So they force us to buy compulsory annunity from them. You cannot choose the age you wish to buy nor insurance company you want to buy from. So we have to pay high premium because we only buy it at 55 and the payout is miserable because the rule are lay down by CPF.

We still feel insecure inspite of the list of CPF funds set up to meet retirement needs - it only shows CPF has fail us big time.

It was reported that the one major pension funds in Japan is in trouble. Will our CPF end up like Japan, losing its citizens savings ? Blind trust is dangerous. Japanese trust those in authority too much. So they do not see it coming. Same for S'poreans. Blind trust can be also very fatal.

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