CPF schemes are NEVER well conceived.

At last someone prominent has spoken up about Eldershield plan, which is suppose to take of the medical cost should we become an invalid. Prof Phua K H said that the scheme is completely inadequate. We the ordinary folks know this insurance plan under CPF is another sucker scheme all along. But our feedback has fall on deaf ears. After all, our leaders think we are 'daft' so what we say can be ignored as 'just noise'.

It is suppose to be provide 'affordable' health care. Perhaps the premium is 'affordable' but the payout is miserable that hardly covers half the potential health care cost, which has been escalating drastically in recent years. We are talking about invalids who cannot perform 3 of  life daily activities. These folks will need help in their daily life and may required the service of a maid. They will find it hard to take public transport and may need to use the taxi. If the payout is already insufficient to cover medical needs, how are these invalids to cope with all these other costs ?

Besides, being handicap and unable to perform any 1 routine of daily activities is bad enough. Eldershield requires us to be almost totally handicap as they will only pay out when we cannot do 3 activities ! They cap the payout to 72 months, so pray hard we will die within their stipulated period. They don't care what happened to us after that. They are only interested in collecting the premium out front.

When CPF increases our minimum sum every year, they said it is due to inflation. But when they force us to buy their insurance schemes such as Eldershield, CPF life, the pay out never factors inflation cost. Their planning or lack of it is obvious. Take the recent example of CPF Life scheme. Its compulsory element will take effect next year. But it  has been revamped again this year. They reduced the 4 plans to 2 options.  Revamping it within such a short duration only shows poor conceptualization of the scheme.

Then the Eldershield scheme which was launched in 2002. In a short span of 5 years, CPF told us to upgrade it 2007. Hello - it is not free as seems to be implied by the press report, which say that "Government increased the monthly payout from $300 to $400, and the maximum payout period from 60 to 72 months".

We have to pay for the upgrade and were recommended to buy into their supplementary plan. If the Eldershield plan is a good scheme and well conceived, why do we need to buy into more and more plans? For an additional $400 payout from the supplementary plan, we ended up forking out 30% more in premium compare to the original Eldershield plan which includes the amount paid for the upgrade.

Now the government under PAP said they intend to review the plan  2013. Shark ! More bad news as more of our CPF money will be depleted again. Every time they made a mistake, we end up paying for it. They will come up with more fanciful plans, upgrade...etc and tell us to buy into their nonsense which never pay enough for us to survival anyway. Their top priority is still cost recovery.

The worst part is most of their schemes are compulsory or auto-inclusion. Unless one is alert and follow up with their non stop change in policies, one will be included in all these schemes unwittingly.

So be very alert ! Make it a point to opt OUT of any CPF scheme if given a chance. Our 'Central Ponzi Fund' is just that -  it is a bottomless greedy pit which sucks big time. There fooled us into believing that the various schemes are for our retirement, it will take care of our medical cost, it will see us through old age disability needs...which all fail to materialize !

Most of us already do not have enough fund for retirement. But all CPF is interested in, is to lock up and deplete our money with more devious schemes. They use our hard earn saving to buy into more govt bonds to fund govt spending and fund the big boys in risky investments which often turn into billions $ losses.

Justification for charing patients at SNEC

This is a follow-up post with regards to the

previous titled 'My Reply to SNEC', where I

find it inconceivable that SNEC may be

racking up $1.44million per year for a simple

eye check lasting last than 2 mins where most

optical shops do it for free. 

SNEC clarified that their $6 charge for the

pre-consultation evaluation test includes 3

tests and performed by 2 nurses :-

i) auto-refraction

ii)non-contact tonometry

iii)visual acuity

Going by my observation, most patients only do

the visual acuity test which is to read

alphabet/number chart.This could be easily be

done by those nurses who are attached to the

consulting doctors. 

Normally there is a few minutes lapses between

each patient consultation as the doctor needs

to complete their medical case note and read

up on the next patient's medical record.The

attending nurse to the doctor could complete

the visual acuity test within that time in

the doctor’s consultation room. The set up

is simple as it just required a simple eye

chart consisting of alphabet/number.

This will reduce waiting time for patients

who have to queue in different testing rooms

before being seen by the doctor. It will

improve efficiency and cut down the number

of nurse require for the evaluation test. 

It will be interesting to know what is the

percentage of patients who undergo all the

3 tests in the first place. If the majority

of patients only do the visual acuity test,

then why make them paid for the cost

incurred by minority patients? 

$ in Biscuit Tin

When CPF Board announced recently that they will allow topping up of non-immediate family members' CPF account, there were lots of tongue in the cheek comments over the internet.

1) CPF is so desperate for fund that now we can top up our in-laws, great great grandparents ..etc a/c

2) Most prefer to give cash to their family members than top up their a/c. Money deposited into CPF may never see the light of day again. CPF is forever changing their policies to lock up our money.

3) It is more secure and comforting to keep the money in a biscuit tin than in CPF. At least we get to look at it and do what we want with it. Money in CPF is no longer ours, we have no control over it.

Those who has less than the minimum sum of $500 in POSB / DBS would be better off keeping their money in a biscuit tin too. Instead of earning interest, which is almost non existence since it is so low that it is close to zero, they are penalized and have to PAY the bank administrative charges.  Even if the banks paid interest, (which they don't) the admin charges will be much more that the interest paid !

Sigh ! Why penalized the poor ? Their saving will be depleted faster. Instead of saving for a raining day, their saving are being sucked away by these heartless banks.

Local vs FT

We can see the invasion of 'foreign talents' in all aspect of our lives.  During the annual meeting of a local Reits company, half the board of Directors are 'FT'.  There are many FT in their management team as well. Even their CFO is a FT. Is S'pore so lacking in talent ? Do FT gives us more confident in the company ?

For me it is a definite NO. At another Reits company meeting, locals form the bulk of the board of Directors and management team. This company has a much larger portfolio and diversify business. Their performance is much better.

There is this company which performance dropped drastically. They got a FT to helm the company. Looking at the way the AGM is conducted, letting go of this company's share will be my priority. He did not even bother to give a summary account the the company's performance and outlook. Went straight into the agenda and breezed through it. The AGM was over in 10 minutes though it had a whole list of items to be voted on, which other company's AGM would take more than half an hour to settle. There was not even a single question from the shareholders ! The reason could be this FT chairing the meeting did not encourage question. He looked down all the time and glance up briskly when he asked if there was question before quickly proceeding on.

The voting is by raising of hands. They don't even bother to adopt good practice in voting procedure but go for the easier way.

Low Fertility Rate and Mass Import of Immigrants

What is new ? Same old scare tactic story. Government form a new ministry and they repeat the same old wife's tale which we have been listening for the past decade. PAP is brain dead. They cannot think out of the box.  Just add more half truth statistics and paint a more frightening picture.

We the citizens are immune. It will not work.  We can see PAP is turning S'pore into a pressure cooker. Our young who have the capability and talent will leave S'pore with such poor quality of life. So they are creating a void which can never be filled up with mass import of immigrants. They will only get sub-quality immigrants as those super talent will be going for countries which offer better quality of life. Who wants to become citizens in a pressure cooker?