{"id":389442,"date":"2026-04-13T07:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T07:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389442\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T07:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T07:16:07","slug":"forum-figure-of-16-9-an-inaccurate-depiction-of-healthcare-cost-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389442\/","title":{"rendered":"Forum: Figure of 16.9% an inaccurate depiction of healthcare cost inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The headline of the article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/health\/medical-cost-inflation-in-singapore-set-to-hit-record-16-9-lia-urges-collective-action?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\">Medical cost inflation in Singapore set to hit record 16.9%; insurers\u2019 body urges collective action<\/a>\u201d (March 30) does not provide an accurate picture of healthcare cost inflation in Singapore.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The Healthcare Consumer Price Index for 2025 is about 3 per cent. It covers many aspects of healthcare, including hospital bills, primary care and medication costs.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The 16.9 per cent figure reflects the growth in private healthcare insurance claims, not healthcare inflation. This figure is compiled using insurers\u2019 and brokers\u2019 own internal data and \u201cmedical cost trends\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A key reason for rapidly rising private healthcare insurance claims is overly generous insurance coverage, leading to a  \u201cbuffet syndrome\u201d. This has, in turn, led to escalating private insurance premiums which many Singaporeans find unaffordable.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">That is why the Ministry of Health has to take action to require changes to the design of Integrated Shield Plan riders. Singaporeans should review their insurance needs with their financial advisers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Lydia Loh<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Group Director, Healthcare Finance Group<br \/>Ministry of Health  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The headline of the article \u201cMedical cost inflation in Singapore set to hit record 16.9%; insurers\u2019 body urges&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-389442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}