SINGAPORE: Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said a key challenge to sustaining a fair and progressive tax system in Singapore is healthcare spending.
Wrapping up the Budget debate in Parliament, he said healthcare spending is going to be biggest driver in the increase in expenditure over the next ten to 20 years.
He said Singapore is currently spending about 1.6 per cent of the GDP on healthcare.
By 2016, it would go up to two per cent of GDP and by 2030 when the rapidly ageing population will be the biggest driver of rising expenditure going forward, healthcare spending may reach around 3.5 per cent of GDP, taking into account demographic changes and higher medical inflation.
Mr Tharman stressed that Singapore should focus on achieving international standards for healthcare outcomes rather than simply on increasing spending.
He said: "It has to be said that we are getting relatively good outcomes compared to most countries despite spending much less dollar inputs. Second, target the subsidies where they are most needed. There will be a need for subsidies and there will be groups which have affordability problems which we must help them. But (we need to) target it where it is most needed and not broadly across the board. This is what we are doing in this year’s Budget and going forward.
Mr Tharman also encouraged Singaporeans to find a low cost care setting environment to save cost.
"Instead of staying in hospitals for a long period at a very high cost, (one can) move to a lower cost setting in the community or the home," he said.
Mr Tharman said the government is aggressively increasing its subsidies for home—based care and community based care so that people can enjoy being at home and the community at a lower cost to the tax payer.
He countered suggestions by the Workers’ Party for Singapore to spend 6.1 per cent of GDP like first world, developed countries.
Giving health care as an example, he said if its spending was raised to six per cent of GDP, this would mean taxes would rise significantly across the board.
"If it is GST, it has to rise to about 20 per cent. If it is corporate income taxes, it will have to rise to above 40 per cent. If it is personal income taxes, it will have to rise across the board with a top line rate moving to about 60 per cent," he explained.
He added: "Mr Low Thia Khiang also spoke about first world social safety net. I think you were congratulating us for moving to a first world safety net. I felt very intimidated when you said that because I don’t like the idea of this first world safety net because it means first world taxes and first world debts and I don’t like both ideas. I think all of us here have an inherent dislike for the level of taxes or the level of debt that comes with first world social safety net."
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Singapore's IT awards spotlight social media pros
Singapore Computer Society confers awards to two executives for spurring social media growth, and acknowledges Neptune Orient Lines CIO Wu Choy Peng for transforming company's IT culture and processes.
SINGAPORE--The Singapore Computer Society (SCS) acknowledged the efforts of an industry stalwart, as well as rewarded the contributions of two social media proponents in its annual IT Leader Awards this year.
Its 2012 IT Leader of the Year title went to Wu Choy Peng, group CIO of logistics firm Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), who was rewarded for being instrumental in architecting the company's IT plan and streamlining its operations, the SCS said in a media briefing on Friday. The IT Leader Awards is into its 16th year of being.
Lim Swee Cheang, director of Institute of Systems Science (ISS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), was also inducted into the IT Hall of Fame for helping implement several IT education programs locally, it noted.
According to Tham Ai Chyn, chairperson of the IT Leader Awards 2012 at SCS, the selection process this year had been "rather difficult" due to the numerous nominees submitted. This is why there were two winners selected for its Young Professional of the Year and IT Youth awards, as "it would not be fair" to settle for just one winner, she said during the briefing.
Spurring social media growth
Among the four other winners, two of them stood out for boosting the standing and use of social media within the IT industry.
Kelly Choo, co-founder and vice president of business development & strategy at Brandtology, for one, was conferred the IT Young Professional of the Year award for championing social media intelligence. He did so by inventing innovative ways for companies to leverage social intelligence to benefit their businesses, as well as spearhead Brandtology's growth to become a leading provider of social media intelligence globally, the SCS stated.
Speaking to ZDNet Asia at the event sidelines, Choo said social media is a great way for companies to connect with their clients and customers, especially in the area of customer service, marketing and public relations.
He added that in the IT industry, publicity has moved from television advertisements to the online world and social media is now an outlet for companies to establish their brands and interact with customers.
Choo's interest in social media was first piqued while studying in the University of Pennsylvania, U.S., during which he dabbled with the technology and realized its power to influence and interact with people. This was when Facebook had just been invented and accepted only accounts from the U.S, he added.
His past stint as an IT security specialist at Singapore's Ministry of Defence (Mindef) has also influenced how he correlates social media with security.
"While IT security and social media are not [immediately] related, the way of thinking is rather similar," Choo explained. "They're both about maintaining one's reputation and how people are talking about you online. With so much identity theft, viruses and worms on Facebook recently, IT security and social media have become more intertwined."
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduate Zhang Lizi, who was awarded the IT Youth award, is another who was recognized for his work in the social media field.
The 20-year-old, inspired by Facebook's success with its ranking algorithm, PageRank, devised his own trust ranking algorithm called TruRank. His algorithm helps online social networks mine interaction data to model the trust relationships between community members, and gained considerable attention after he presented his work at an international conference, the SCS noted.
Trustworthiness, said Zhang at the briefing sidelines, is the central issue face by people on social media platforms. "People exchange ideas, opinions and information and, in the growing number of people in virtual communities, they don't know who they can trust and whose information is more valuable," he explained.
Joel Lou, the CEO of JustCommodity Software Solutions, a commodity trading and risk management service provider, and Nicholas Ooi, the 17-year-old founder of IT services company Towards IT Technology, were the other recipients of the IT Young Professional of the Year and IT Youth awards, respectively, the SCS stated.
SINGAPORE--The Singapore Computer Society (SCS) acknowledged the efforts of an industry stalwart, as well as rewarded the contributions of two social media proponents in its annual IT Leader Awards this year.
Its 2012 IT Leader of the Year title went to Wu Choy Peng, group CIO of logistics firm Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), who was rewarded for being instrumental in architecting the company's IT plan and streamlining its operations, the SCS said in a media briefing on Friday. The IT Leader Awards is into its 16th year of being.
Lim Swee Cheang, director of Institute of Systems Science (ISS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), was also inducted into the IT Hall of Fame for helping implement several IT education programs locally, it noted.
According to Tham Ai Chyn, chairperson of the IT Leader Awards 2012 at SCS, the selection process this year had been "rather difficult" due to the numerous nominees submitted. This is why there were two winners selected for its Young Professional of the Year and IT Youth awards, as "it would not be fair" to settle for just one winner, she said during the briefing.
Spurring social media growth
Among the four other winners, two of them stood out for boosting the standing and use of social media within the IT industry.
Kelly Choo, co-founder and vice president of business development & strategy at Brandtology, for one, was conferred the IT Young Professional of the Year award for championing social media intelligence. He did so by inventing innovative ways for companies to leverage social intelligence to benefit their businesses, as well as spearhead Brandtology's growth to become a leading provider of social media intelligence globally, the SCS stated.
Speaking to ZDNet Asia at the event sidelines, Choo said social media is a great way for companies to connect with their clients and customers, especially in the area of customer service, marketing and public relations.
He added that in the IT industry, publicity has moved from television advertisements to the online world and social media is now an outlet for companies to establish their brands and interact with customers.
Choo's interest in social media was first piqued while studying in the University of Pennsylvania, U.S., during which he dabbled with the technology and realized its power to influence and interact with people. This was when Facebook had just been invented and accepted only accounts from the U.S, he added.
His past stint as an IT security specialist at Singapore's Ministry of Defence (Mindef) has also influenced how he correlates social media with security.
"While IT security and social media are not [immediately] related, the way of thinking is rather similar," Choo explained. "They're both about maintaining one's reputation and how people are talking about you online. With so much identity theft, viruses and worms on Facebook recently, IT security and social media have become more intertwined."
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduate Zhang Lizi, who was awarded the IT Youth award, is another who was recognized for his work in the social media field.
The 20-year-old, inspired by Facebook's success with its ranking algorithm, PageRank, devised his own trust ranking algorithm called TruRank. His algorithm helps online social networks mine interaction data to model the trust relationships between community members, and gained considerable attention after he presented his work at an international conference, the SCS noted.
Trustworthiness, said Zhang at the briefing sidelines, is the central issue face by people on social media platforms. "People exchange ideas, opinions and information and, in the growing number of people in virtual communities, they don't know who they can trust and whose information is more valuable," he explained.
Joel Lou, the CEO of JustCommodity Software Solutions, a commodity trading and risk management service provider, and Nicholas Ooi, the 17-year-old founder of IT services company Towards IT Technology, were the other recipients of the IT Young Professional of the Year and IT Youth awards, respectively, the SCS stated.
Thousands suffer as UK is swept by stomach bug
A highly infectious stomach bug has claimed thousands of victims as it sweeps across Britain.
The virus has badly affected schools from Cornwall to northern England, and forced the cancellation of surgery at hospitals in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Because it is so infectious, it is a difficult illness to contain, experts say.
While there are outbreaks during most winters, levels are higher than usual this year.
Health Secretary Alan Milburn said the Department of Health was ' keeping a close eye' on the spread of the virus.
'It's right to be concerned about it,' he said. 'As I understand it, this is quite a common airborne virus which has hit certain parts of the country in hospitals and schools.
'It happens every year but the important thing is that we keep it under close monitoring, which is precisely what we are doing.'
Mr Milburn denied that the spread of the virus was a result of poor hygiene standards in hospitals.
The bug, known variously as Norwalk virus and SRSV (small roundstructured virus), often starts with the sudden onset of severe and explosive sickness.
A spokesman for the Public Health Laboratory Service, which monitors infectious disease outbreaks, said doctors across England were seeing
more cases than usual. 'There is SRSV activity around the country,' he said. 'It is the most common gut infection and levels peak during the winter season.'
Around 2,000 reports are normally made to the PHLS in a year of high activity.
However, most cases go unreported as the illness often lasts only 36 hours, and it is estimated that between 600,000 and a million Britons are affected each year.
The illness is more common at this time of year, which has led to it also being referred to as 'winter vomiting disease'.
Schools have been particularly badly hit by the outbreak.
One of the first affected was Fowey Community College in Cornwall, where half the 1,100 children called in sick on one day last week.
The virus has also been reported at schools in the Manchester area.
One-third of the 900 pupils at All Hallows School in Penwortham are currently off sick.
One victim, Jenna Clorin-Wright, 15, said: 'You feel terrible for about three days. All my friends have come down with it.'
The virus has caused the closure of hospital wards in Glasgow and affected several other hospitals in Scotland, as well as in Swansea and Newport in Wales, and in Belfast.
Among the towns with known outbreaks are Newcastle, Leeds,
Manchester, Preston, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Brighton, Southampton, Plymouth, Market Drayton in Shropshire and Derry in Northern Ireland.
Britain's leading infections expert, Professor Hugh Pennington, called the bug the 'Mike Tyson of viruses'.
He said the virus has a greater chance of spreading where a large number of people are in a closed environment, such as a hospital, school, holiday camp or a cruise liner.
'It is an institutional thing and it is not a surprise that there have been so many outbreaks in hospitals,' he said.
'It is a very clever virus. It is pretty good at spreading itself.'
Professor Pennington said scientists began to study the virus when they could not link outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhoea with other bugs such as salmonella.
But it was more difficult to study the SRSV in the lab under microscopes compared with salmonella and E.coli, he added.
Many patients do not go to see their doctor and if they do they are unlikely to take a sample that would confirm the nature of the illness.
The infection usually starts with the sudden onset of severe and explosive sickness, known as projectile vomiting. The victim can be absolutely fine one minute and then vomiting the next. Some people develop diarrhoea.
Symptoms usually last for 24 to 36 hours and there are rarely any long-term effects.
The illness is transmitted person to person, or via contaminated surroundings, especially of toilets, but it can be spread by contaminated food and water.
The most commonly contaminated food is shellfish that contains concentrated amounts of virus from sewage contaminated waters.
A Daily Mail Report on 2nd March
The virus has badly affected schools from Cornwall to northern England, and forced the cancellation of surgery at hospitals in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Because it is so infectious, it is a difficult illness to contain, experts say.
While there are outbreaks during most winters, levels are higher than usual this year.
Health Secretary Alan Milburn said the Department of Health was ' keeping a close eye' on the spread of the virus.
'It's right to be concerned about it,' he said. 'As I understand it, this is quite a common airborne virus which has hit certain parts of the country in hospitals and schools.
'It happens every year but the important thing is that we keep it under close monitoring, which is precisely what we are doing.'
Mr Milburn denied that the spread of the virus was a result of poor hygiene standards in hospitals.
The bug, known variously as Norwalk virus and SRSV (small roundstructured virus), often starts with the sudden onset of severe and explosive sickness.
A spokesman for the Public Health Laboratory Service, which monitors infectious disease outbreaks, said doctors across England were seeing
more cases than usual. 'There is SRSV activity around the country,' he said. 'It is the most common gut infection and levels peak during the winter season.'
Around 2,000 reports are normally made to the PHLS in a year of high activity.
However, most cases go unreported as the illness often lasts only 36 hours, and it is estimated that between 600,000 and a million Britons are affected each year.
The illness is more common at this time of year, which has led to it also being referred to as 'winter vomiting disease'.
Schools have been particularly badly hit by the outbreak.
One of the first affected was Fowey Community College in Cornwall, where half the 1,100 children called in sick on one day last week.
The virus has also been reported at schools in the Manchester area.
One-third of the 900 pupils at All Hallows School in Penwortham are currently off sick.
One victim, Jenna Clorin-Wright, 15, said: 'You feel terrible for about three days. All my friends have come down with it.'
The virus has caused the closure of hospital wards in Glasgow and affected several other hospitals in Scotland, as well as in Swansea and Newport in Wales, and in Belfast.
Among the towns with known outbreaks are Newcastle, Leeds,
Manchester, Preston, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Brighton, Southampton, Plymouth, Market Drayton in Shropshire and Derry in Northern Ireland.
Britain's leading infections expert, Professor Hugh Pennington, called the bug the 'Mike Tyson of viruses'.
He said the virus has a greater chance of spreading where a large number of people are in a closed environment, such as a hospital, school, holiday camp or a cruise liner.
'It is an institutional thing and it is not a surprise that there have been so many outbreaks in hospitals,' he said.
'It is a very clever virus. It is pretty good at spreading itself.'
Professor Pennington said scientists began to study the virus when they could not link outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhoea with other bugs such as salmonella.
But it was more difficult to study the SRSV in the lab under microscopes compared with salmonella and E.coli, he added.
Many patients do not go to see their doctor and if they do they are unlikely to take a sample that would confirm the nature of the illness.
The infection usually starts with the sudden onset of severe and explosive sickness, known as projectile vomiting. The victim can be absolutely fine one minute and then vomiting the next. Some people develop diarrhoea.
Symptoms usually last for 24 to 36 hours and there are rarely any long-term effects.
The illness is transmitted person to person, or via contaminated surroundings, especially of toilets, but it can be spread by contaminated food and water.
The most commonly contaminated food is shellfish that contains concentrated amounts of virus from sewage contaminated waters.
A Daily Mail Report on 2nd March
China Just Sentenced A Man To Prison For Starting The Latest SARS Rumor
The Epoch Times reported on a possible SARS outbreak in Baoding China on 27th Feb, and one of its sources may have been sent to prison.
Reuters reports a man has been sentenced to "labor re-education" for his part in spreading rumors of a SARS outbreak.
Chinese officials maintain the man was working for a website and cooked up the rumor to increase web traffic to his site.
China Daily has also come out with its official response, saying the infections at PLA 252 hospital are not SARS. The rumors began circulating late last week and the man was sentenced by Sunday evening.
Reuters reports a man has been sentenced to "labor re-education" for his part in spreading rumors of a SARS outbreak.
Chinese officials maintain the man was working for a website and cooked up the rumor to increase web traffic to his site.
China Daily has also come out with its official response, saying the infections at PLA 252 hospital are not SARS. The rumors began circulating late last week and the man was sentenced by Sunday evening.
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