30 October 2010
A caring society
Injecting $5B (care) + $50B (medical insurance) in good years is an ingenious move: (a) to "circumvent" the principle of keeping the expenditure within the limits of revenues in bad years (BL107)?; and (b) to maintain a low tax policy by squeezing the local tycoons but not the foreign companies (BL108)? Is Hong Kong becoming a welfare state?
10 October 2010
Health insurance
The age / risks banded premiums are highly commendable, similar to car insurance, which is rational and fair.
Insurance policies (e.g. life insurance), if bonded (mixed) with investment / savings and other types of unrelated policies, are usually difficult to understand, and once bonded, cannot be separated (e.g. even when the investment return is poor, the investment portion cannot be dropped, unless the entire policy is canceled).
Under the proposed legislation, please do not allow such bonding. And if bonding is unavoidable, please make it separable, and if not separable, please ensure that the contents should be decipherable (e.g. the annual investment return should be calculated against the investment portion (compound interest should also be accounted for), instead of muddling the figure against the entire policy amount including the life insurance portion).
As it now stands, the life insurance market is far from transparent. For portability, please allow carrying over the entire policy, including the top up portions. As I see it, the proposal is an ingenious way to partly privatize health service for the middle class to private insurers, in the hope that medical costs can be contained through private efforts while maintaining a public system for the poor and needy. This can only be achievable through genuine competition among a fair number of private insurers.
Many specialists have left the public system to enter private practice. This may imply higher costs for the middle class in the long run. Please consider adopting the Australian Medicare model by reasonably capping the amount a doctor may charge / claim under this voluntary insurance scheme. In so doing, consumers as a whole will have more bargaining power.
If a doctor / hospital chooses to charge more than the standard rate, some consumers may choose another doctor / hospital who charges the standard rate or less. In other words, service / equipment charges should not be standardized under the scheme, but competitive pricing be allowed. This will help control the price of medical care in the long run, which otherwise may be inadvertently fueled by similar medical insurance schemes in other countries.
Insurance policies (e.g. life insurance), if bonded (mixed) with investment / savings and other types of unrelated policies, are usually difficult to understand, and once bonded, cannot be separated (e.g. even when the investment return is poor, the investment portion cannot be dropped, unless the entire policy is canceled).
Under the proposed legislation, please do not allow such bonding. And if bonding is unavoidable, please make it separable, and if not separable, please ensure that the contents should be decipherable (e.g. the annual investment return should be calculated against the investment portion (compound interest should also be accounted for), instead of muddling the figure against the entire policy amount including the life insurance portion).
As it now stands, the life insurance market is far from transparent. For portability, please allow carrying over the entire policy, including the top up portions. As I see it, the proposal is an ingenious way to partly privatize health service for the middle class to private insurers, in the hope that medical costs can be contained through private efforts while maintaining a public system for the poor and needy. This can only be achievable through genuine competition among a fair number of private insurers.
Many specialists have left the public system to enter private practice. This may imply higher costs for the middle class in the long run. Please consider adopting the Australian Medicare model by reasonably capping the amount a doctor may charge / claim under this voluntary insurance scheme. In so doing, consumers as a whole will have more bargaining power.
If a doctor / hospital chooses to charge more than the standard rate, some consumers may choose another doctor / hospital who charges the standard rate or less. In other words, service / equipment charges should not be standardized under the scheme, but competitive pricing be allowed. This will help control the price of medical care in the long run, which otherwise may be inadvertently fueled by similar medical insurance schemes in other countries.
09 August 2010
Get well prepared for your retirement!
Picture this: supposing you have worked for 35 years, and by the time you retire (say more or less at 60) you wish to maintain the same living standard for the remaining 35 years (with better medical care and nutrition, the average lifespan will probably be 95 during your retirement), then it is logical that you should have saved at least 1/2 of your salaries from the 35 yrs while at work, for the 35 yrs w/o a job. The moral is that if you don't save 1/2 of your salaries and invest in order to catch up with inflation, you will not be able to maintain your living standard. Some people will thus end up on social security, and some may work till 75. If you save less than 1/2 of your salaries, you need to have good investment skills (if you wish to maintain the same living standard during retirement).
11 July 2010
19 June 2010
Portia and Bryan
Tonight after seeing Portia and Bryan perform in Hello Dolly at school, I had the feeling that they had grown up quite a lot. It was only 5 years ago when I started this blog and I was teaching them while they were listening to me attentively at McDonald's. They still do to a large extent these days, for which I am grateful; and I hope they will remain so for some few more years. I believe that God has taken care of so many things in the past year(s); and I saw miracles happening, even today, God's message is so strong.
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