John Stossel ~ The Singapore Alternative to Obamacare

Affordable Excellence : The Singapore Healthcare Story How to Create and Manage Sustainable Healthcare Systems




Affordable Excellence
tells the story of the Singapore
healthcare system, how it works, how it is financed, its history, and where it
is going.
William A. Haseltine : Today Singapore ranks sixth in the world in healthcare outcomes
well ahead of many developed countries, including the United States.
The results are all the more significant as Singapore spends less on healthcare
than any other high-income country, both as measured by fraction of the
Gross Domestic Product spent on health and by costs per person. Singapore
achieves these results at less than one-fourth the cost of healthcare in
the United States and about half that of Western European countries.
Government leaders, presidents and prime ministers, finance ministers and
ministers of health, policymakers in congress and parliament, public health
officials responsible for healthcare systems planning, finance and operations,
as well as those working on healthcare issues in universities and think-tanks
should know how this system works to achieve affordable excellence.
The lessons from Singapore should be of interest to those currently
planning the future of healthcare in emerging economies, for Singapore was
not always rich. In just 50 years, Singapore transformed itself from a low-
income country to one that has one of the highest per capita incomes in
the world, from a country with poor health outcomes to one of the best in
the world. What was the philosophy and what were they key decisions that
drove this transformation? Leaders and policy planners may well ask—will
this work in my country?