Is health insurance covering private hospitals really necessary? Is it penny wise / pound foolish to only buy the public hospital coverage?

Hi Kelly,

I think why you would want to have insurance covering up to private hospitals is more for options, and also peace of mind. I think if anyone is hospitalised, he or she would like to have the option to select the best treatment possible and not be limited to just public hospitals.

I personally have not been hospitalised, but I recently had a friend who she herself had personal experience between public and private healthcare. She had actually scrapped her toe by accident while walking and when to a GP to have it treated, but it did not get well, and when she went back to the GP, the GP asked her to go to a hospital.

She went to a public one, and upon diagnosis, the docs concluded that she would need to amputate the toe, which she was preparing her heart for it, but because she had health insurance that covered for private health care, she got a 2nd opinion and the private docs said that they could treat her without needing to amputate her toe.

I think this story itself is an example between public and private health care, so it's up to you as an individual to see what matters more

Hi Kelly,

Private and public is indeed very different (at least in the context of Singapore). I was bringing my mom out today and she was just reminicing about giving birth to me and my siblings, I was born in a public hospital and my brother was born in a private hospital. The differences were stark, although some can be attributed to changing technology and the like, but service and monitoring came up as a main gripe of hers. In private, she never felt that she was more than a minute away from medical help, in public, the staff were perpetually overwhelmed and hardly able to attend to her.

Even today, when I'm helping with my clients' claims, some remark that they should have just gone to private, as even in a govt A ward, they felt what they experienced was quite lacking.

Then again I don't have a big sample size to fall back on, so take it with a pinch of salt. Still, it is mostly true that most of the top minds are in private, so that's where the best care is.

When one is young, I'd say go for the private plan if you can afford it. Price difference is barely $100-$200/yr which is not a lot. When one is older and the price difference is in the thousands, you can always downgrade to Govt A without medical underwriting. The quality/price balance might seem unjustified in old age, but one thing to consider is if money were no object, would your loved ones want the best medical care for you?

Having said that, with a little bit of planning and time, one can prepare cashflow and funds to ensure that the premiums can be paid in old age.