<p>Singapore has a universal healthcare system where government ensures affordability, largely through compulsory savings and price controls, while the private sector provides most care. Overall spending on healthcare amounts to only 3% of annual GDP. Of that, 66% comes from private sources.[2] Singapore currently has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world (equaled only by Iceland) and among the highest life expectancies from birth, according to the World Health Organization.[3] Singapore has “one of the most successful healthcare systems in the world, in terms of both efficiency in financing and the results achieved in community health outcomes,” according to an analysis by global consulting firm Watson Wyatt.[4] Singapore’s system uses a combination of compulsory savings from payroll deductions (funded by both employers and workers) a nationalized catastrophic health insurance plan, and government subsidies, as well as “actively regulating the supply and prices of healthcare services in the country” to keep costs in check; the specific features have been described as potentially a “very difficult system to replicate in many other countries.” Many Singaporeans also have supplemental private health insurance (often provided by employers) for services not covered by the government’s programs.[4]</p>
<p>Wikipedia article on Healthcare in Singapore.</p>
<p>We’ve used the healthcare system in Singapore and I was shocked at how inexpensive it was (this was back in the 1990s). They have a degree of micromanagement of services that US companies probably wouldn’t care for. Their healthcare system was very good when it was private and very good under a universal system so it appears that their underlying model (before changing the payment system) was already very good. It appears to me that they had a very strong cost-focus in place and I think that makes the payment system a much smaller issue.</p>
<p>The government also promotes healthy eating and exercise and takes steps to provide exercise and nutrition programs for overweight students (I don’t believe that they are optional). They do this for adults via the media. We used to do this too but I think that a lot of the public health ads went away in the 1990s. I used to remember seeing them all the time in the 70s and 80s.</p>
<p>There are a lot of studies out there on Singapore’s healthcare system given pretty good outcomes at very low cost.</p>