MediShield Life premiums can be fully covered by Medisave

MediShield Life premiums can be fully covered by Medisave




SINGAPORE - You will not need additional cash to pay your MediShield Life premiums because it can be fully covered by Medisave. And your Medisave account will be boosted by an extra 1 per cent that your employer must contribute to the account.

This means the increase in the premiums, or what you have to pay as MediShield gives way to MediShield Life by the year's end, should be covered by this for most people.

If you have no money in your Medisave, you can apply for support from the Government to pay the bill. The scheme, which aims to provide medical insurance coverage to all Singaporeans and permanent residents, was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

First introduced at the National Day Rally in 2013, MediShield Life, which will replace the current MediShield, will be implemented by the end of this year.As it is a national scheme that is mandatory and premiums will support universal benefits, timely premium payments are necessary.

Those who deliberately default on payment of premiums will be penalised. For instance, there will be a penalty of up to 17 per cent of outstanding premiums, and interest on late premiums.




DATA ACCESS

The Bill also allows authorised access to your financial and medical information in government and administrative databases.

This will facilitate the extension of premium subsidies and transitional subsidies of four years to eligible Singaporeans, as well as checks on those with serious pre-existing conditions.

You can choose not to allow access, but then you have to manually apply for the premium subsidies. If you do not, you will end up paying more.

If you make any false declaration, you can be fined up to $5,000, jailed 12 months, or both.

A MediShield Life Council will be formed to look into the scheme and its administration.

For one thing, they will review and make recommendations to ensure that the policy and scheme parameters will provide effective coverage for all Singaporeans.

More details of the scheme and its parameters will be released at a later date.

Thursday, Jan 22, 2015
The New Paper
By Linette Heng

What you need to know about MediShield Life