By Howard Lee
I have to say up front that I am not a fan of the Workers’ Party. A lot of their policy proposals are too conservative for my liking, and I feel that they can take a stronger approach in and out of Parliament to enhance their brand position.
But what I do like about WP, as with many other opposition parties, is that they have doubtlessly put some effort into thinking through many of our policy positions and have made significant proposals that they think are useful for taking the national conversation, if not the country, forward. Within the limited information and resources they have, these efforts are commendable, and I feel is the right thing to do for any political party worth its salt.
So when we have Senior Minister of State for Education and Law Indranee Rajah criticising WP for their take on Medishield Life, you get the feeling that the full picture is not quite right.
Oddly, reports on Channel NewsAsia and TODAY lifted almost wholesale from her one Facebook posting, as it it were the gospel truth. Why the excessive attention paid to a Facebook post when, with all due repect to her capabilities, Indranee does not even hold a portfolio in healthcare? What, also, did Mediacorp not verify if her claims against WP were true?
What were her claims, actually? In Indranee’s own words, WP has “claimed credit, kept it vague, and are calling for more” on Medishield Life.
Claim credit?
A closer reading of the statement by WP’s Gerald Giam will reveal that the charge of WP claiming credit was hardly warranted. TOC has received the statment in full, and the line that Indranee seemed to have taken offence with here was this: “Many of the recommended enhancements to the MediShield health insurance scheme have been articulated by Workers’ Party MPs in Parliament as well as by many Singaporeans over the years.”
It is, however, a factually true statement that Giam has made. Giam’s blog contains many of the speeches that he made in Parliament to discuss Medishield, not to mention the other speeches that his other party colleagues have made.
It is also not right to assume that WP was dismissing the citizen feedback process, as Indranee has claimed. Giam would also have presumably engaged citizens separately on healthcare, in particular one dialogue session that was hosted by TOC. Even if these lie outside the boundaries of the Our Singapore Conversations (OCS), he would not be wrong in articulating some knowledge of what citizens have raised as issues.
No amount of evaluation should possibly construe this line as claiming credit, unless you deliberately wish to inject that view into it.
Keeping it vague?
In addition, as can be seen in Giam’s opening speech at TOC’s dialogue, WP’s position was far from vague. Giam articulated specific proposals about what WP sees as issues with Singapore’s healthcare system. Also, it is useful to note that many of these were held since November 2013, when the Medishield Life Review Committee was still in deliberation.
Indranee might also have missed Giam’s interview with the Straits Times, when he said, “Three days after the MediShield Life review committee was set up, I made an adjournment motion speech in Parliament where I gave a few proposals about how we can improve MediShield.”
But if you were to go a little further back, you would realise that WP has documented a multi-tiered position on Singapore’s healthcare system. When it announced its election manifesto leading up to General Elections 2011, WP dedicated a chapter of five full pages to what they think Singapore’s healthcare system should be. Within these pages, a total of 21 proposal points on healthcare were made.
Among these, perhaps the two points most relevant to Medishield Life would be:
“To cover acute hospital bills, there should be a compulsory Basic Hospitalisation Insurance Scheme with co-payment of the premium from the government.
For coverage and sustainability, risk pooling to finance Long Term Care will need to be studied seriously. The Eldershield scheme is a start, but the viability of a broader-based insurance scheme with higher coverage should be pursued.”
In contrast, within the entire 2011 manifesto of the People’s Action Party, which for some reason is no longer available online, there contained a total of four statements related to healthcare, without specific proposals particularly in relation to Medishield Life. They were:
“Build new General Hospitals in Jurong and Sengkang, and keep health services affordable to all Singaporeans through the ‘3Ms’ of Medisave, MediShield and Medifund.
Strengthen the safety net for the needy, ill or disabled through Medifund and Public Assistance, as well as ComCare and the many helping hands of the community.
Transform long-term care and bring it closer to the home with enhanced support from the new $1 billion Community Silver Trust, as well as ElderShield and ElderFund.
Expand and upgrade polyclinics, community hospitals, nursing homes, day rehabilitation and home nursing services.”
By all counts, it would seem that the PAP believed in 2011 that the current 3M system was more than adequate to cover for our healthcare needs. It might even be logical to assume that the review to Medishield Life was not even on the cards for PAP. If anything, it would seem that the PAP’s position in 2011 was vague, while WP has been crystal clear in what they want to achieve. It is the PAP that has flip-flopped now, or simply awoken from being clueless?
For sure, Indranee’s claim that “Medishield Life is the sum of the combined efforts of OSC participants, civil servants who manned the OSC secretariat and those who worked tirelessly on the policy recommendations, the PAP ministers…” might not be totally wrong, but neither should we assume that it is right.
If anything, that the PAP has to learn from OSC of all these grievances coming from citizens is indicative that it does need help with getting a better feel for the ground. Ironically, if the PAP has accepted the concept of “constructive politics” that WP’s Low Thia Kiang has proposed, which Indranee has once again chosen to dismiss in her Facebook post, it might have realised it’s inadequacy even before there was a need for the OSC.
Calling for more?
In reality, the PAP has hardly scratched the surface of what WP has proposed much earlier. There is evidently still a lot more that needs to be done in revamping our healthcare system. Why, then, should WP ask for anything else but the full slate of what it advocated since 2011? If they do not, would they be accused of flip-flopping? It does look like a no-win situation.
However, what is clear is that Indranee has not taken a long hard look at what WP and other parties have proposed for healthcare – again, we should not blame her, for she does not hold a healthcare portfolio. For those among us who have paid attention to what opposition parties have been advocating, and at times criticised their proposals, we know that what we see today in Medishield Life is barely addressing the core issues in healthcare.
There are a lot more policy alternatives, if only the ruling party would listen to their most dreaded opposers, be they parties or citizens. But if the PAP were to take Indranee’s word and ignore what those who have spent time studying it have to say, it closes another door to any strain of conversation or criticism it can lay hands on.
And the right step in “politics for the people”?
Perhaps all this is nothing more than posturing in the political process, party pride, and a need to insist that they – or maybe only a particular party – have all the answers. But the loss is PAP’s, because the real losers are the people, who have now even less reason to trust the ruling party is doing all it can to do what is right by them.
This is made even worse when comments such as those by Indranee are carried out by media without critique, as it would have a detrimental effect on what our political process should really be about.
It is not about taking every opportunity to knock down and criticise your opponent, but to acknowledge where a positive policy process has taken place, and humbly say “thank you” when even your worst opponent says “well done, but…”.
Image – montage created from images on Channel NewsAsia’s website
