S'poreans First? Just a smoke screen lah

Still on the health care topic, recently mini Lee announced that very soon medical and education subsidies for PRs and foreigners will be reduced. According to him it is about time we "put Singaporeans First".

Of cos the 1st thing dat comes to my recruit mind is "oh! so all this while u put Sporeans where ah?" Second, third, or fourth?? So now we know! HAHAHaha mini Lee slap himself again!

TODAY got this letter and IMO the person has got it right. I am just going to highlight some parts of the letter...

Gap in citizen logic
Improving S'poreans' welfare without cutting PR benefits may be a better approach

Letter from Ran Xia

I refer to the recent letters debating the new policy for foreigners to pay more in certain essential services, in particular Mr Chia Hern Keng's letter, "Not robbing Peter to pay Paul" (Dec 8), which has untangled the issues and helped clear the air.

Under the new policy, foreigners, including Permanent Residents (PRs), have to bear a higher cost of living — by paying more for education and healthcare — while there is no indication that citizens will pay a single cent less.

Moreover, local employers may have to absorb the additional costs to attract foreign talents. Neither foreigners nor citizens are likely to get any real financial benefit. Some citizens may get the impression that they will pay less because they are Singaporeans, but the size of their bill will remain the same.

(blah, blah, etc)

It is not meaningful to stretch the debate based on who needs who more, or loyalty to the nation. We need one another in this globalised world, while citizenship — either by birth or conversion — does not necessarily guarantee loyalty.

I think the original intention of this new policy was to create a "gap" between PRs and citizens to encourage more foreigners to take up citizenship here.

Let's think in reverse: Wouldn't it be more sensible to increase the welfare of citizens rather than take away what PRs have now? This serves the same purpose but definitely makes citizenship more attractive.


Under the PAP gahmen, prices go up liao will never come down one. Helping to reduce the cost of living is like slicing a pound of flesh from the PAP elites' flesh. WTF man! So once again instead of addressing the root causes of why medical costs and so on are escalating like nobody's business, they chut this pattern saying "see! someone will suffer more than you leh, so better shut up." WTF??

Instead of improve things for Sporeans, they make it worse for another group, as if that will somehow make Sporeans happier and lighten our load?! The logic behind is really KNN man... It is like the GST hike lidat, transfer the burden from the rich to the poor. So it is the same thing here, transfer the burden from Sporeans to non-Sporeans. And who knows maybe along the way the gahmen keep some for themselves! Raise bonuses and ministerial salaries!!

This is precisely why limpeh is skeptical. Becos the GST hike is very unpopular and hard to swallow for Sporeans, so mini Lee needs to placate Sporeans. So throw out this "Sporeans First" bullshit smokescreen. Besides, it is always very effective to play up nationalistic sentiments that put Sporeans vs Non-Sporeans. It is nothing more than a political move rather than a genuine attempt to put Sporeans first.