The fraility of life

I was stricken with some viral bug and had fever for the past 5 days.

My boy also caught it and his fever hovered around 38.5 degrees for nearly 4 days before subsiding.

However, what struck me most was the horrible freak accident that took the lives of 5 of our Singapore dragonboaters.

What made it even worse was that one of them was my childhood friend, Mr Stephen Loh. My heart aches for his parents and his brothers.

However, if I’d been in their shoes, would I have thought that wearing a life-vest would be “un-macho” in front of the other countries’ paddlers? If I was the sole one who’d believed that we should wear these jackets, would I have been chided?

It was such a waste of five fine lives just because they didn’t put on their life-jackets.

My condolences to the families of all 5 gentlemen and hope that they’ll be able to pick themselves up and continue living for the memories of these men.

Such is the fraility of life

We’re home

My family and I went to Tokyo for a short holiday.

We spent a total of S$3,300 for 5 nights, return airtickets on NWA and all related spending. Not too bad for a “budget” tour.

Photos have been uploaded into Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alwinwoo/

No to covering special needs children under Medishield: Khaw

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan has said that covering special needs children for treatment relating to congenital or pre-existing illnesses under Medishield is not a viable option, potentially resulting in excessive premiums paid by policyholders.

Mr Khaw said that it would be unusual for insurers to cover pre-existing illnesses or to cover treatment relating to congenital diseases, (as) to do so will be to load the burden on the rest of the policyholders who may not support a manyfold increase in premiums to take on this additional liability.’

He stressed that ‘if Medishield were to cover pre-existing illnesses, it will encourage potential policyholders to delay subscription until they are sick’.

This, he said, would ‘defeat the whole purpose of insurance, which is based on the sharing of burden, among policy holders with similar risk profiles’.

What’s the correlation between getting potential policyholders to delay subscription and covering new-born children who were born with congenital illness?

If newborn babies don’t get Medisave cover by the end of a reasonable period from birth (eg. 3 months from DOB), then they should be excluded should any congenital illnesses surface. BTW, weren’t all children to be covered by Medisave? Wouldn’t this be like pulling the blanket away from the baby who needs it most?