IN THE letter, "Better to have clearly spelt-out guidelines on means testing" (my paper, March 7), Mr Jason Chiam Chiah Sern asked for guidelines to be spelt out specifically for special cases.

As assured by the Health Minister, means-testing will not affect a large majority of patients. For patients earning significantly more than average Singaporeans, they will co-pay more but the reduced subsidy will still result in largely affordable bills given their healthy Medisave balances.

We do know that there may be some with special circumstances who may need additional assistance. For instance, they may have many dependants or are looking after family members who may have complicated congenital illnesses, rendering them uninsurable.

Given the wide range of possibilities, rigid guidelines will not be practical and will likely miss out other unanticipated circumstances which deserve help.

In fact, a simple guideline that "all those with genuine financial difficulty paying essential treatment should be assisted" works much better and offers our hospitals wider leeway. This is not a theoretical formulation. For example, the Hospital Medifund Committees have been performing such tasks for years. They are assisted by our Medical Social Workers and the approach has served their objective well. We are, therefore, confident that this can be done.

Meanwhile, middle-income and upper-income Singaporeans should remember to subscribe to MediShield and top that up with a private MediShield Rider, if they have not already done so. Premiums are affordable and with such insurance protection, they will not need to worry about means-testing at all.

Ms Karen Tan
Director,
Corporate Communications
Ministry of Health