Koh Poh Koon
Singapore
“In 2025, for walk-in patients, the median and 95th percentile doctor consultation waiting times were eight minutes and 72 minutes respectively. However, the Ministry of Health (MOH) does not track waiting times by peak versus off-peak hours, but it is likely that 95th percentile waiting times happened during peak hours.”
“The offences and penalties for importing, supplying or abusing SPS products are similar to those in the MDA, to ensure similar level of deterrence. Mr Speaker, with your permission, may I ask the Clerks to distribute a handout that summarises the changes in legislative penalties for key offences.”
“So, if you are a Singaporean student, you will expect that there will be some subsidies to the fees. The third question on how can the public, who may want to seek psychological care, know who is legitimate.”
“Sir, I thank the Member for his question on audiologists. In general, a qualified audiologist in Singapore needs a higher level of certification because a diploma level may not be quite enough to perform the task. So, we will look and see whether there is a way to actually find an in-between.”
“We are starting with registration to give formal recognition to those who are practising in higher risk sub-sectors in psychology and making sure that the quality, the standards and the support is given to them to deliver the care that the clients and the patients need.”
“It takes a bit of, not just system change in the providers, in the doctors and the care teams, but also, a gradual shift in the mindset of our population as well. So, it is something that we have to continue to do. There is no magic bullet to this and it is not something we can achieve overnight. 12.15 pm”
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“We have also enacted the Workplace Fairness Act to promote fair employment practices and protect employees from workplace discrimination. Our Workplace Safety and Health performance also ranked amongst the top performing countries, with a five-year average workplace fatality rate of 1.1 per 100,000 workers in 2024. We will continue working to ensure that our economic strategies translate economic growth into good jobs for Singaporeans.”
“Mr Speaker, we use wages as a key operational measure to track if proposed investments create good jobs, since this is the most objective indicator of job quality. This enables comparisons across sectors, firms, occupations and workers. Having said that, the notion of a "good job" varies across individuals, shaped by their circumstances and aspirations. It often includes factors such as wage growth, opportunities for career development, fair and safe workplaces, personal fulfilment, and what gives someone highest utility, among many others. There are multiple dimensions to good jobs, and no single, universally accepted framework for measuring job quality. The perception of what constitutes good jobs also has a time dimension to it and may change with age. Hence, we chose to measure a range of more objectively measurable labour market indicators and regularly benchmark our labour market performance internationally across key dimensions that cover job creation and job quality, such as: one, labour market participation; two, labour underutilisation; and three, earnings. These are broadly aligned with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) framework and across these domains, Singapore generally ranks favourably relative to OECD economies. Local workers have experienced sustained and inclusive wage growth. From 2021 to 2025, real gross monthly income at the median grew by 7.4%. At the 20th percentile, income grew even faster, by 10.1% over the same period. Two-thirds of private sector establishments provided structured training to employees, demonstrating that employers continue to invest in their workers. Fewer employees experienced discrimination at work, with the proportion decreasing from 8.5% in 2021, to 6% in 2023.”
“Nonetheless, we have stepped up our national posture and issued out alerts to healthcare practitioners, institutions, as well as tighten some of the monitoring at our migrant worker onboarding centre to make sure that we keep our borders under some observation. For any incoming individuals who may have symptoms, to take proactive actions to contain, to isolate and also to to give them supportive care if necessary; and at the same time, also to help them to monitor their symptoms within the first 14 days of arrival in Singapore, for example. So, we are adopting a cautious posture, but looking for vaccine target at this moment is premature. [Please refer to "Clarification by Senior Minister of State for Health", Official Report, 12 February 2026, Vol 96, Issue 17, Correction By Written Statement section.] Thirdly, on his question on coordinating with other regional and global partners, that is an ongoing stream of work that CDA has always undertaken. That was the reason why we have raised our alerts – because we have information from our partners in the World Health Organization, in other jurisdictions, such as West Bengal. We will continue to maintain those links, share information as needed and to continue to adjust our posture.”
“Sir, on the Member's first question on timeline for the outcomes of research, I do not have definitive timelines. And I think the Member would understand that for research activities, even the researchers themselves probably would not know when they would hit jackpot. I think we will continue to fund and support them in any way we can and hope that their research will bear fruits in the time horizon that they are hoping to achieve. So, that is something where I am afraid we would just have to let time take its course and for the research activities to be concluded. For the vaccine targets that may well be on trial elsewhere, we will keep a close eye on some of the developments and see if these are useful products that we can have access to as well. But I must also caution on the Member's suggestion. The Nipah virus outbreak at this moment is localised. It is not something that is widespread. The Nipah virus in the South Asia continent has been something that occurs there from time to time. So, this is not the first time it is happening. But generally, it is a zoonotic infection that has very rare, or does not often have, human-to-human transmission. The current transmission is localised to certain localities, it is not widespread. But we are raising our caution to watch this carefully. It is not the same posture that we adopt as for COVID, which had become a generalised pandemic in that episode we had been through. So, there is probably no urgency at all for now, for us to look at procuring vaccine targets ahead of time in anticipation of a widespread global pandemic.”
“Yes, for sure. Any of the information collected by the SG Arrival declaration card will indeed be piped into CDA so that we can perform any contact tracing if necessary.”
“Sir, I thank the Member for raising these questions, which many people are naturally concerned about. Indeed, the answer to her question is yes, we have enhanced the electronic health declaration card, which is part of the SG Arrival Card. In this format, if the arriving individual, clicks yes on the SG Arrival Card to any of the symptoms, then there will be a prompt to enter the previous travel destination, and that would include the West Bengal region as well. But if the person clicks no to any of the symptoms, then he would not be prompted for any travel destinations that we are monitoring. So, it is to make sure that there are no excessive compliance needs on the individual submitting the information card to make it seamless. At the same time, we do not want to end up having over-declaration for those with no symptoms. [Please refer to "Clarification by Senior Minister of State for Health", Official Report, 12 February 2026, Vol 96, Issue 17, Correction By Written Statement section.] What is the second question?”
“Sir, thank you for your indulgence. Just a quick clarification to the reply given to Mr Pritam Singh earlier. I mentioned that only five workers or more being retrenched will need to notify, but that is wrong. Actually, it is that companies that have 10 or more workers will be required to notify the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of any retrenchment within five working days. It is not five workers but within five working days. As long as the company has 10 or more workers, even if one worker gets retrenched, it would need to notify MOM. Thank you, Sir.”
“Sir, thank you for your indulgence. Just a quick clarification to the reply given to Mr Pritam Singh earlier. I mentioned that only five workers or more being retrenched will need to notify, but that is wrong. Actually, it is that companies that have more than 10 workers will be required to notify the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of any retrenchment within five working days. It is not five workers but within five working days. As long as the company has more than 10 workers, even if one worker gets retrenched, it would need to notify MOM. Thank you, Sir. [Please refer to "Data on Companies with More Than 25 Workers Paying Retrenchment Benefits in Line with Tripartite Guidelines", Official Report, 4 February 2026, Vol 96, Issue 16, Oral Answers to Questions section.] [(proc text) Written statement by Dr Koh Poh Koon circulated with leave of the Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No 29(5): (proc text)] I wish to make the following factual correction to my clarification at the end of question time for the Parliament Sitting of 4 February 2026. My statement should read as follows:”
“Sir, thank you for your indulgence. Just a quick clarification to the reply given to Mr Pritam Singh earlier. I mentioned that only five workers or more being retrenched will need to notify, but that is wrong. Actually, it is that companies that have more than 10 workers will be required to notify the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of any retrenchment within five working days. It is not five workers but within five working days. [Please refer to "Data on Companies with More Than 25 Workers Paying Retrenchment Benefits in Line with Tripartite Guidelines", Official Report, 4 February 2026, Vol 96, Issue 16, Oral Answers to Questions section.] As long as the company has more than 10 workers, even if one worker gets retrenched, it would need to notify MOM. Thank you, Sir.”
“Thank you, Sir. I am mindful that time is running out, so, I will keep my reply short. In general, we do not treat new, redomiciled or existing companies any differently in terms of hiring practices. All companies operating in Singapore ought to comply with Singapore labour laws. Any arrangements that occur as a result of acquisition or restructuring is something that is a commercial arrangement between companies. The Government will not intervene in it. But we will make sure that when it comes to hiring or retrenchment, as we have discussed in an earlier Parliamentary Question, the laws will protect the rights of our workers and make sure that they are treated fairly and equitably. 3.01 pm”
“Sir, the acquisition of Manus is a commercial agreement between parties involved. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) does not intervene in such acquisition agreements. The Government does not disclose details of the workforce demographics of individual companies in line with confidentiality obligations, and all foreign companies operating in Singapore are expected to comply with Singapore's manpower laws and fair hiring practices. The Economic Development Board (EDB) works closely with foreign companies and startups to facilitate skills transfer, training and capability development for the Singapore workforce, ensuring that Singaporeans benefit from the presence of such companies in our business environment. For example, EDB has rolled out initiatives such as the Enterprise Compute Initiative (ECI) to support skills transfer and capability development. ECI partners major cloud service providers such as Microsoft to help Singapore-based companies build dedicated local AI teams. These companies can also tap on reskilling and upskilling support from Workforce Singapore and SkillsFuture Singapore to equip our Singaporeans with the capabilities needed to take on new growth job roles.”
“Sir, I think this is something that we will have to continue to engage with companies on, because some of these multinational companies may follow certain norms that they bring over from their operations in other jurisdictions or their home country. But in general, we do encourage our unions to continue to engage with multinationals, and many of them do engage with these multinationals. And through a more interactive understanding between the unions and the companies, we hope to socialise them to the norms that are here. And in general, many of these companies, once they understand the different tripartite environment in which they operate here in Singapore, many of them, over time, will consider moving closer to that kind of norm, especially in a collective agreement setting.”
“Sir, I am afraid I do not have the detail of the exact date in which we did this review, but I would say TAMEM, I think, there was a recent update, probably just around the period of the COVID-19 crisis. So, I will have to check back on that. But the Member could also maybe check on the website and see when that guideline was revised.”
“Sir, I refer to my main reply, which said that for companies with 10 or more employees, around nine in 10 eligible employees received retrenchment benefits and among them eight in 10 received retrenchment benefits of at least two weeks' salary per year of service. But I do not have the breakdown of how many among these eight in 10 received more than two weeks per year of service, because the difference also arises from whether this is a company where the employees are unionised. In general, for unionised companies, if they have a collective agreement, the prevailing norm in unionised companies with a collective agreement is one month per year of service. So, depending on whether the worker is a union member, whether this company is unionised, workers who were retrenched could get at least two weeks, maybe even more, per year of service. And there are instances in which certain companies actually value their long-term workers who may have been with them for longer and give in excess of a month per year, up to a month and a half, sometimes with a lot more ex gratia as well. So, that is why I said it is a balanced approach, given flexibility to the company and for companies which may have better financial means where the number of workers retrenched are lesser, they could lean forward a lot more and support the workers a lot more. But for companies who are in financial distress, where they have to lay off a large number of workers, they may not have the financial wherewithal to go beyond that two weeks per year of service quantum, and they have to then spread the financial support to a lot more of their workers who are being retrenched. I hope the Member understands where that kind of flexibility afforded to the workers and to the company is important in such instances.”
“And stipulating a minimum retrenchment benefit quantum in law will likely result in that quantum becoming the norm itself, such that even when companies are able to give more, they may then say, "if this is the only thing that is required by the law, let us just do the minimum as required and not go beyond that". So, this will not benefit workers in situations where the employers are able to pay higher amounts. The tripartite partners agreed on a balanced approach to issue guidelines instead, which stipulate the prevailing norms for retrenchment benefit quantum and as mentioned in my reply, most employees today already receive retrenchment benefits in line with these tripartite guidelines.”
“His third question is whether companies of different sizes, especially those which have more than 25 workers, can be mandated to give more retrenchment benefits, rather than what he calls a "one-size-fits-all" requirement. I think, when it comes to retrenchment, we must understand that companies retrench workers for various reasons. And the tripartite partners have actually deliberated extensively on whether to make retrenchment benefits mandatory at all, regardless of company sizes – just the idea of a retrenchment benefit being made mandatory. And in fact, to also think about whether we should specify the minimum quantum in legislation. So, the questions of minimum quantum and mandatory retrenchment benefits have been deliberated extensively by the tripartite partners. And we concluded that a balanced approach to protect workers, while at the same time providing businesses flexibility, would achieve better outcomes for both workers and businesses. Because there are many reasons why a retrenchment exercise takes place. Imposing strict conditions, such as legally mandating retrenchment benefits, may affect the viability of companies who are already in financial difficulties and put existing employees, other employees who may still be in employment with the company, at risk of also being retrenched, if the company then gets into further financial difficulties by the fact that we mandate a certain requirement for monetary compensation that actually makes it difficult for them to even continue. The second reason, of course, is that mandatory retrenchment benefit may also result in employers becoming more hesitant to offer long-term or permanent contracts to employees.”
“I thank the Member for his three supplementary questions. His first question pertains to whether we can mandate companies of all sizes to notify the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of retrenchments. I think there is no real right or wrong answer to this, whether it should be companies of a certain size to notify MOM. At this moment, our requirement for mandatory retrenchment is for companies that retrench five or more workers to notify MOM – and not specific to company size per se. The reason for this is that we want to understand if a company has a sizeable retrenchment of more than five workers, MOM would want to know and we want to extend early support to these workers who may be losing their jobs. So, notification is not necessarily related to company sizes per se. [Please refer to "Clarification by Senior Minister of State for Manpower", Official Report, 4 February 2026, Vol 96, Issue 16, Correction By Written Statement section.] But to require every single company to notify MOM of just one worker being retrenched, I think that would impose a lot of extra burdens. So, we want to just size it where we can make a meaningful contribution to helping workers who may be in need without imposing excessive legislative demands on companies. On the issue of punitive clauses, I believe there was a Parliamentary Question that was asked about the specific company, and I have addressed it in a previous Parliamentary reply. So, I will not go into further details on this particular instance, on the punitive clauses. The Member can check the answer for that previous Parliamentary reply.”
“Based on Mandatory Retrenchment Notification (MRN) data submitted by companies with 10 or more employees, around nine in 10 eligible employees received retrenchment benefits from 2020 to 2025. Among them, around eight in 10 received retrenchment benefits of at least two weeks’ salary per year of service, in line with the norms stated in the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment (TAMEM).”
“Mr Speaker, my reply will also address Question No 46 for written answer, raised by Mr Patrick Tay in today's Order Paper, as the subject matter is similar.”
“Sir, I thank the Member for her questions. I think mental health conditions encompass a very wide spectrum, so the key thing is to make sure that in our support rendered, it will be individualised to the needs of the individual. Not every individual with a mental health condition will want to seek employment. But I think our aim is to make sure that those who desire to do so, we will do our best to support them, in terms of vocational training and maybe support measures, so that they can become equipped with the necessary skills and the ability to get into employment. As for the duration, again, it is going to be individualised, because different individuals with different conditions will have different needs as well. The professionals will have to assess each and every one of them on an individual basis. I would suggest we give the professionals time to come up with a framework because that will be something that will be useful as a guide to what they can do. Clearly, there will be certain individuals where the condition will be quite unsuitable for employment and therefore, regardless of what the duration is, it may not reach a point where the person can reach capability to be deployed meaningfully in a workplace; in which case, other measures to support the individual's needs will have to be considered.”
“Thank you, Sir. I understand there are different assessment tools in the market in assessing disability but what we are choosing to use is something is widely adopted at the World Health Organization, in the European Union, widely used by insurers. It is also something that many of our clinicians and doctors are familiar with. I think it is something that we want to do, that it is aligned with international practice, that is also easy and convenient for our assessors and our clinicians to use, rather than put in different matrixes that actually ends up promulgating different tools and creating some confusion. I think we both agree that we should try to make sure that the scheme is sustainable at this moment as far as CareShield Life is concerned, to limit the support to those with severe disability. Those at the margins, we will take a compassionate approach. If they require care that cannot be claimed through CareShield Life but for which they need further support, we have other means to help them to access that care as well. And that is ultimate thing: to make sure that regardless of the severity of your illnesses or disability, care is always accessible; and if need be, other forms of support can come in. 6.36 pm”
“And for those with milder disability, generally you can imagine that their care needs would be much lesser, in which case our approach of strengthening subsidies at the care delivery setting would make many of these care more affordable already and available to those in milder disabilities. So, it is not just trying to solve the problem with one tool but looking at the multiple layers of support we have, by first of all, making the overall care cheaper through subsidies, through grants so that the need to even tap on CareShield Life for milder, maybe to moderate, disability will be much lesser as well.”
“Sir, I think the gender-related claims data, like I said, we do not have enough mature data to share, even if we looked at some of the ElderShield claims from before, because that is a different construct and at a different time point where not all the individuals may give us good data at the moment to project forward for CareShield Life. So, we can take a look and if there are data to share, we would do so maybe at a future Sitting. On the scoring system, the crux of the issue is whether we want to allow those with moderate, maybe even mild, disability to be included and that means expanding the scope of coverage. Because if you are taking a graded approach, it means that you are trying to define those who are lesser than severe disability according to today's ADL definition, to be assessable for claims. That means broadening the coverage to a wider pool of people which must mean that the payouts must increase, which must mean that premium loading on existing cohorts must go up. The CareShield Life Council did consider whether we should broaden from beyond severe disability to those with more moderate disability. But I think in the end, the Council took the approach that that would mean that there will be policy premium impacts on the rest of the policyholders and potentially make it less affordable to more Singaporeans. As I mentioned in my speech, the Council's decision is to take a balanced one where, as a basic level of protection for all Singaporeans, they want to make this affordable and more broad-based rather than opening up to a lot more claims and making it far more difficult for especially those in the lower income to be accessible.”
“Sir, I thank Dr Choo for her two questions. On the second one on cases of appeal, I do not have data on hand right now, so if she wants to know more, perhaps, she will have to file a Parliamentary Question at some other Sitting. On the tele-assessment, this is still very much a pilot at the moment, as Dr Choo would probably understand, assessing disability on the remote setting carries technical challenges. The assessor on the other end of the line will have to first make sure that it is safe for the person with disability to be assessed without the assessor's assistance. There could be a risk of falling, for example. And also, you make sure that it is not something that can be gamed. So, there are some real challenges and so this pilot will help us to understand what are the challenges we need to overcome, what are the safeguards we need to put in to make sure it is fair, to make sure it is something that is robust, before we can think of rolling this out in a broader way. So, I hope the Member will give us a bit more time to take a look at what are the outcomes that the pilot shows before we can think about how to broaden it to wider application.”
“Have I answered all the Member's three questions? I would say that will be a very difficult thing to construct because once you have a partial kind of system that is neither here nor there, not very clearcut, you would open things to gaming, to adverse selection and that will make the whole scheme unsustainable. So, and that is part of the reason why we are now tightening the underwriting and this is to respect the principles of making sure that it actually is sound and the underwriting is fair.”
“And we have actually extended the sign-in period from two years to four years to give ample time and double our outreach efforts as well to encourage those who may want to consider to come in to join the scheme before the end of this year, including availing up to $4,000 of premium subsidies to make it more as a reassurance that when they come in there will be premium subsidies to make it affordable for the Optional Cohort to join in. So, given that the number who are signing up now has dropped down to a lower number, we think this is about time to tighten the underwriting to make sure it is fair to the other existing policyholders who are in the Optional Cohort that has already come in for the last few years. So, I hope this is something that the Member can appreciate that, it is really striking the balance between wanting to help the remaining small number of people or to be fair to the rest of them who has already made the effort to come in and do the risk-pooling. On the second case of whether there is an appeal mechanism. We take this on a case-by-case basis. But, in general, severe disability, especially permanent disability does not really change over time. That is why they are called permanent disability. And if the assessment is that this is a permanent disability, generally, the assessor would have to be quite certain that it is a particular condition that will see no chance of improvement over time and it is something that we have to strengthen in terms of the training we provide to the assessor so they can make a clear, unbiased assessment of the level of disability to qualify for the three ADLs threshold that we talked about here and I hope that is something that will help to allay the Member's concerns about this particular aspect.”
“Sir, I thank the Member for her concern regarding the Optional Cohort. But let me just give some context to this because the Optional Cohort is the older cohort that is actually a much smaller cohort, because the number of people in that age range would be lesser than those in the younger cohort. The Member can imagine that as they age, less and less of their peers will be around. Which means that the burden will be shared by a lesser number of people in terms of premiums that need to keep the funds for that cohort for claims sustainable. And that is why the premium will be higher and once we tighten the reins and reinstate the original underwriting criteria, as I mentioned in my speech earlier, the Optional Cohort who are still policyholders today will see a premium drop from next year onwards because they now do not have to pay higher premium to account for some of the peers who may suddenly join in with disability that may draw down on the claims. The Member understands the math behind it, yes? So, I think in trying to help this Optional Cohort to be part of the CareShield Life we also have to consider what it means to the rest of them who are already in the same cohort who are CareShield Life policyholders. Is it fair to them as well? Because they are bearing a lot more premiums today in anticipation of someone who may choose to join much later on with disability. And that is what their cohort has been bearing for the last few years before we now make this move to tighten the underwriting criteria.”
“I thank Ms He for her two clarifications. On the first one, for claims data. I think this CareShield Life is barely about five years and as I said earlier, many of the policyholders today are still quite young and the claims data is, at this point, not mature enough for us to draw any robust conclusions. But the way we do it, on your second clarification, was the fact that we use principles from actuarial science to actually price the premium based on the gender differences in their biological behaviour over time. And the Council is prepared to relook at actual data over time and decide if further adjustments are needed. Whether it will move towards completely equal parity between men and women, I do not know. Maybe men will participate more in Healthier SG and become healthier, and they can live just as long. We might reach parity but only time will tell how the data will pan out.”
“Sir, I thank Ms Jessica Tan for raising that concern. But let me just say that the biggest assurance from my speech today that the Member should take back is that, under whatever circumstances, if a Singapore Citizen cannot pay any part of the premiums needed, we will cover fully whatever is needed through the additional premium subsidies to make sure that no one is without coverage for CareShield Life. In the instance if there is any premium that is owed, we will not hold back the disbursement of support that is needed for this individual and talk about the recovery of the premiums that may take place at some point in time. But we will act with compassion and make sure that the person who needs the payout from CareShield Life will not have a lapse of payment from CareShield Life in any instance.”
“Mr Speaker, ageing is part of life's journey. While we cannot stop time, we can shape how we age. The Government is taking steps to empower Singaporeans to lead active, healthy and purposeful lives in their silver years through national initiatives such as Age Well SG. Some of us may come to require more support for our ADLs. Our commitment to Singaporeans is that we will continue to develop our care ecosystem through more community care services and Age Well Neighbourhoods, to enable more to age-in-place confidently. Financially, we have reviewed our support ecosystem to ensure that Singaporeans have access to affordable care through enhancements to long-term care subsidies and grants earlier this year. With the enhancements to CareShield Life, Singaporeans can be assured that these insurance payouts, too, will continue to provide meaningful support for long-term care, should they need it. The Council will continue to review the scheme to ensure that it remains relevant to policyholders. This Bill supports these enhancements by strengthening the legislative framework to ensure that the scheme remains fair and sustainable through appropriate underwriting criteria and enhanced premium recovery mechanisms. These amendments will help ensure that CareShield Life continues to provide essential financial protection when families need it most, for current and future generations of Singaporeans. I thank Members for their support of this Bill. Mr Speaker, Sir, I seek to move.”
“We have also expanded the number of assessors who perform house calls to improve access and convenience for policyholders. MOH and AIC will press on with efforts to expand our assessor pool. I would also like to assure Mr Yip Hon Weng as well as other Members that we will continue to ensure that assessors are rigorously trained to conduct fair and high quality assessments. These assessment outcomes are also subject to further clinical reviews, if necessary. Sir, I agree with Members that we can make our financial support schemes more seamless. We now have nine AIC Link offices across the island. These serve as a one-stop resource to help connect care recipients and their caregivers to the support they need. Our Silver Generation Ambassadors also reach out to seniors to explain schemes in a clear and more personal manner. As Mr Melvin Yong and a number of Members have noted, better awareness and insurance literacy can help families make more informed financial decisions. Community touchpoints also continue to remain an important source of help for seniors and caregivers to understand the suite of long-term care financial support schemes available. We will continue to work with AIC and community partners to reach out to families to increase awareness of the support available. We agree with Ms Mariam Jaafar that we can make our scheme application process more claimant friendly. One way we have done so is by giving residents the opportunity to be automatically assessed across various disability schemes after having undergone a disability assessment. This reduces the administrative burden and ensures timely support for families. We will continue to identify areas for improvement and ensure the claims process remains efficient and responsive to policyholders' needs.”
“Therefore, there is only limited data, including on how healthy behaviours translate to lower claims for severe disability. When more claims data is available, we can consider if similar premium discounts can be considered in future. The CareShield Council will also review CareShield Life regularly over time to ensure that both the benefits and premiums, including the actuarial assumptions, remain relevant and sustainable over time as our demographic profile evolves. The Council regularly monitors the financial status of the CareShield Life and ElderShield Insurance Fund to ensure that premiums, which are set on a non-profit basis, remain adequate to sustain the scheme's obligations to all policyholders over time. In response to Ms He Ting Ru's question, I want to assure her that the information on the Fund, including the amount of claims and investment claims, is already publicly available in CPF Board's annual financial statements. Third, on simplifying processes and improving access to financial support. Before I elaborate further, let me just first clarify with Assoc Prof Jamus Lim that CareShield Life is administered by the CPF Board and not outsourced. We fully acknowledge the challenges faced by caregivers. We are committed to improving the user journey for care recipients and caregivers and ensuring a citizen-centric experience that allows residents to get support in a timely manner, as Ms Mariam Jaafar has shared. Since CareShield Life was launched, we have doubled the number of severe disability assessors island-wide from over 300 at launch to now more than 700 assessors. More GPs in the community, therapists and nurses are being trained, and every public hospital now has in-house assessors.”
“Members have rightly observed that an ageing population and rising costs of care could present challenges to premium affordability over the long run. We agree with Ms Mariam Jaafar that sustained investment in prevention and well-being is crucial. The Government is paying close attention to these trends and has embarked on national strategies to address this. This includes Healthier SG and Age Well SG, which aim to empower Singaporeans to live healthy and active lives. By staying in good health, we not only minimise the cost of care, but importantly, enable every Singaporean to live their lives to the fullest. That in itself should be the biggest benefit to Singaporeans, although there are also other subsidies and incentives in place to promote preventive health. Dr Choo Pei Ling suggested offering CareShield Life premium discounts for those who lead healthier lifestyles. At the heart of Dr Choo's question and suggestion is the principle that prevention is better than cure. We fully agree with that. I had earlier shared the strategies the Government has rolled out to support healthy and active living. Premium discounts are an extension of this. MOH had rolled out a premium discount pilot for MediShield Life just last month. Eligible Singaporeans participating in healthy lifestyle programmes and challenges will be rewarded with discounts of up to $580 off their MediShield Life premiums per year. Unlike MediShield Life, CareShield Life is still a nascent scheme with just a few years of claims experience. This is especially since onset of severe disability typically takes place only at older ages and most CareShield Life policyholders are still young today.”
“Ms Mariam Jaafar, Ms He Ting Ru, Ms Joan Pereira and Ms Elysa Chen asked whether there have been sufficient provisions made for those in the Optional Cohorts who may have chosen not to enroll in CareShield Life. As mentioned in my opening remarks, there are different layers of financial support for those who require long-term care. Individuals may have chosen to prepare for and pay for their long-term care in other ways, such as through personal savings or private insurance. For those who are not enrolled in CareShield Life, there continues to be other layers of support, such as subsidies and grants, which have been significantly enhanced recently. I hope this addresses Ms He Ting Ru's concerns. MOH will continually review our financing schemes to ensure that long-term care costs remain affordable. Another change we are making through this Bill is to strengthen our provisions for premium recovery. Specifically, the provisions in the Bill enable us to serve important documents to policyholders through additional modalities, including electronic means. Let me explain that this is on top of existing modalities, not replacing existing modes. So, I want to assure Mr Alex Yam and Mr Yip Hon Weng that physical notifications will continue to be sent to all policyholders where necessary, including those who are less tech savvy. More broadly, the changes are necessary to equip our administering agencies with tools to recover premiums that are due. Without such tools, premiums owed by wilful defaulters will become bad debt, which will be borne as higher premiums by other policyholders in that cohort. This is unfair to those who have been responsibly paying their premiums.”
“For the Optional Cohort, those born in 1979 and earlier, we had provided a time-limited concession for those with mild or moderate disabilities to join the scheme. This concession, as I have said earlier, was originally intended to be for two years, up to 2023. After two years, we extended this concession to enable more to join in. The extension enabled us to redouble our outreach efforts in the post-COVID-19 period. We also extended the duration of participation incentives and conducted extensive outreach to seniors to encourage them to join. In fact, the concession period lasted for about four years in total. As of June 2025, about 900,000 individuals in the Optional Cohort, or about half of the cohort, have enrolled in CareShield Life. If we were to include those who chose to remain on ElderShield, about seven in 10 older Singaporeans are enrolled in our national long-term care insurance schemes. So, the coverage is not bad. As shared in my opening speech, new CareShield Life applications from the Optional Cohort have decreased by almost 90% compared to when the scheme was first launched. Most Optional Cohort individuals who wanted to join CareShield Life would have already done so by now. Hence, the CareShield Life Council has assessed that it is timely to reinstate the planned underwriting criteria from 1 January 2026 onwards. This will moderate the premium impact for all Optional Cohort policyholders, keeping the scheme fair and sustainable. To keep the scheme fair, this approach will be taken for new Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents of the same age groups as well.”
“Over a lifetime, while women may make more claims due to a longer life expectancy, they will also have to pay more for their premiums because there is the only fair principle. If you are going to claim more and claim for longer, one pays more during the contribution years. Sir, it is about being fair to both genders. It is not about discriminating women or being unfair to women. It is also being fair to the men. Remember, this is about risk-pooling within one cohort, with a limited number of people sharing the risk and therefore, maintaining the payouts for that cohort that needs to claim. A key change that we are introducing through this Bill is intended to safeguard the sustainability and affordability of CareShield Life. By restoring the underwriting criteria for the scheme, we will lower premiums for older Optional Cohort policyholders who today pay higher annual premiums than the mandatory cohort policyholders who joined the scheme at a younger age. I hear Ms Elysa Chen, Ms Jessica Tan and Dr Hamid Razak's concerns over whether reinstating underwriting criteria would make the scheme less inclusive. Let me take the opportunity to emphasise that for all Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents born in 1980 and later, CareShield Life coverage is universal, regardless of preexisting disability. This means that a young person in the mandatory cohort with preexisting disability will still be auto-enrolled when he turns 30 years old. He will pay the premiums for his age once on enrolment and if he is determined upon disability assessment to meet the three ADLs threshold for severe disability, he will be eligible for claims for life thereafter and stop paying further premiums. This is how we make sure that the scheme is inclusive and takes care of those with needs.”
“It means that the burden of any premium that needs to go up is borne by a lower number of people, just in that age cohort alone. The second feature is that this is a pre-funded scheme with limited premium contribution duration but has a lifelong payout as long as a person remains in disability. These are two unique features. As I said earlier, women do live longer and reach older ages where severe disability becomes more likely. The average life expectancy for women is 85.6 years in 2024 compared to 81.2 years for men. We can all understand that as one ages, at older ages, women are 10% more likely than men to enter severe disability at a given age. This is not about discriminating women, this is just biology. It is just the way science is. As you get older, as you live longer, you are just at a higher risk for many other health problems. Women are at a higher risk of getting osteoporosis compared to men. They are therefore more likely to get severe hip fractures when they sustain a fall and they may remain disabled for a far longer period of time. If I can just contrast the design of CareShield Life with MediShield Life, which will hopefully illustrate why there is that gender differentiation in the premium. MediShield Life policyholders pay premiums for life as opposed to CareShield Life, where you stop paying when you reach 67. This means that for MediShield Life, there is no need to insure against the different life expectancies across genders, because the premiums are payable for every year of coverage. If you live longer, you just pay more premiums. For every year you live, you pay. CareShield Life, as I have said, one of the features is that it is pre-funded – for a limited duration, while one is working.”
“This was also discussed extensively in this House in 2019 when CareShield Life was first introduced. In general, within any insurance risk-pool, premiums are actuarially priced such that the premiums collected can pay out for expected claims. This is the case for both men and women. Here, gender is a relevant factor for CareShield Life as the key parameters that affect long-term care insurance claims such as lifespans, duration and likelihood of disability do vary between men and women. Women tend to live longer than men and are more likely to develop severe disability, and therefore are more likely to stay in disability for a longer period. This has remained the case in the past few years too. It will mean that in the event of a severe disability, a woman will typically receive CareShield Life payouts for a longer duration. Support is available for women in lower-income households through existing support schemes, including premium subsidies and Additional Premium Support. Beyond these measures to ensure premium affordability for those who need more support, there is also a need to ensure that the long-term trajectory for CareShield Life premiums remains sustainable and affordable for all policyholders. As I listened to Ms He Ting Ru's speech, I got the sense that she has not quite grasped the features of CareShield Life. There are two distinct features in CareShield Life that are quite different from all other insurance schemes. The first is that this is a cohort-based risk pooling. In other words, the risk-pooling happens in your age cohort. It is not whole-population risk pooling, it is risk pooling among those who are born in the same birth year.”
“In particular, concerns have been raised on whether the current approach towards considering property AV disadvantages some policyholders, such as in a scenario in which policyholders receive less subsidies after retirement when they no longer earn an income. Let me, first, recap that CareShield Life premiums are typically paid through MediSave contributions during one's working years. So, in general, policyholders from lower-income households receive more premium subsidies than those from higher income households. For most policyholders, there will be no more premium payments after retirement, as CareShield Life premium payments currently end at age 67. This is pegged to the re-employment age in 2020 when the scheme was launched. So, the issue of a retiree living in a private property with high AV is not really relevant here. Most of them, by that age, would have stopped paying premiums. Only a small group of individuals in the Optional Cohort, who had chosen to opt-in at older ages, would have to pay premiums beyond age 67. We, likewise, support eligible individuals through premium subsidies and, in addition, those who joined before 31 December 2024 would have also been receiving additional participation incentives of up to $4,000 in total, to offset their premiums. Should anyone still face difficulty paying premiums after subsidies and other support, the Government will provide Additional Premium Support to fully cover their premiums. I say again, to fully cover the premiums. This is why I keep saying to Members that no one will lose CareShield Life coverage due to an inability to pay their premiums. Ms Yeo Wan Ling, Ms He Ting Ru and Dr Wan Rizal raised concerns about premium affordability for women.”
“This includes transitional premium support to spread out and slowly phase in the increase over the next five years. With this support, annual premium increases from 2026 to 2030 are moderated to $38 on average and no more than $75. Lower- and middle-income policyholders will see even lower premium increases, as they will enjoy further subsidies. Mr Ng Chee Meng, Ms Joan Pereira and Dr Choo Pei Ling asked how we can keep premiums affordable even after this transitional support ends. Beyond the transitional support, MOH will continue to provide means-tested premium subsidies for lower- and middle-income policyholders. This will offset up to 30% of their premiums. Premiums will also continue to be fully payable by MediSave, with additional support provided to those with lower MediSave balances. Recently, in July 2025, the Government provided MediSave top-ups of about $320 million to 600,000 Singaporeans. The Government will also be introducing the Matched MediSave Scheme from 2026, with 1:1 Government matching for voluntary cash top-ups of up to $1,000 per year, for those with lower MediSave balances. Lastly, there is also the Additional Premium Support for policyholders, which Assoc Prof Jamus Lim asked about. We will extend invitations to policyholders who are unable to afford their CareShield Life premiums even after subsidies and family support to apply for this additional premium support. I would like to assure this House and reiterate, once again, that no one will lose CareShield Life coverage due to an inability to afford premiums. Ms Jessica Tan and Dr Wan Rizal have asked about the means-testing framework.”
“Mandatory coverage begins at age 30 as most Singaporeans would have started work by then, have some income and savings in their MediSave accounts so they can use these MediSave savings to pay for their premiums. So, it is a design feature of CareShield Life to make sure that it is something that is affordable, that those who have begun working for some time will begin to be able to service their premiums. If we extend CareShield Life coverage to those aged 16 and above on an optional basis, this will lead to adverse selection where those who are more likely to make claims are more likely to opt in. This will push up premiums for everyone else in that cohort. There is a clear trade-off here and such a move needs to be considered very carefully. But I would like to assure Members that young Singaporeans with disability requiring assistance to perform their ADLs, can access other Government schemes besides CareShield Life and these include, long-term care subsidies and grants, such as the Home Caregiving Grant, as well as safety nets, such as MediFund. So, we will make sure that care is affordable and is accessible to everyone. Second, on keeping CareShield Life affordable and sustainable. Members would appreciate that for any insurance scheme to be sustainable, enhancements in benefits must be accompanied by a corresponding adjustment in premiums. Several Members who spoke earlier made this point as well. To support the increase in payout growth rate, there needs to be a one-step increase in premiums in 2026, followed by 4% increase per annum thereafter. Given that the one-step increase is something that may be of concern to policyholders, we are providing an additional $570 million in premium support to cushion the increase for all policyholders.”
“This is because the ADLs construct is an objective measure of the level of caregiving assistance that a patient requires, regardless of the underlying conditions. For the purpose of CareShield Life, the loss of three ADLs remains an appropriate threshold to indicate severe disability and higher care needs. Mr Alex Yam, Dr Wan Rizal and Dr Hamid Razak asked how CareShield Life supports those with cognitive disabilities and impairments, such as dementia patients, as they, too, have significant care needs. MOH's severe disability assessment framework does consider the impact of cognitive impairments on one's ability to independently perform an activity of daily living. For example, an individual with severe dementia may physically be able to chew and swallow the food but may not remember how to do it without supervision. This individual would be assessed to be unable to perform this ADL due to his cognitive impairment. And you can imagine, the same patient with dementia who may not be able to remember how to feed himself or herself could well also not remember how to dress himself or herself and may also have problems managing their toileting functions and, in which case, they will have crossed the threshold of three ADLs to qualify for payouts. Such individuals, therefore, can qualify for CareShield Life payouts when they are unable to perform three ADLs. Mr Melvin Yong asked if the CareShield Life mandatory enrolment age can be lowered from age 30 to 21, with an optional enrolment application for those aged 16 and above. CareShield Life policyholders pay premiums during their working years for protection against severe disability, which occurs mostly at older ages.”
“As for new Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents, they are required to join CareShield Life as part of the compact of becoming a new Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident and this is made known to them at the point of application to be a citizen or a Permanent Resident. Mr Ng Chee Meng asked how the Government will ensure that CareShield Life payouts remain meaningful and adequate. The CareShield Life Council had recommended doubling the payout growth rate from 2% to 4% per annum to allow payouts to more meaningfully cushion against rising long-term care costs. The Council considered whether to make further enhancements to payouts, but was careful to balance benefit enhancements with premium affordability for policyholders. As part of the review, the Council consulted the public on a range of enhancement options through focus group discussions, including a higher payout growth rate. However, ultimately, there was recognition that premium affordability must remain a priority for our national scheme designed to provide basic coverage. The Council's recommendation therefore balanced the need for meaningful support while keeping CareShield Life accessible to all Singaporeans. Nevertheless, those seeking more comprehensive coverage on top of CareShield Life and who are willing to pay higher premiums for this can consider privately-offered supplement products. The premiums for these can also be paid for using MediSave, up to the annual withdrawal limits. I would like to preface that the ADLs construct, is recognised internationally for disability assessments by entities, such as the World Health Organization and the European Union. It is also commonly used by insurers.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Members who have spoken for their unanimous support for the amendments proposed in this Bill. And I thank them also for the thoughtful questions and useful suggestions they have given. I have touched on some of these in my opening speech. So, I will now elaborate more on those other areas that were raised by Members on three different areas: one, supporting Singaporeans with long-term care needs; two, keeping CareShield Life affordable and sustainable; and three, simplifying processes and improving access to financial support. First, on supporting Singaporeans with long-term care needs. I have already explained this earlier but I think it is worth re-emphasising that CareShield Life cannot be seen in isolation. It must be viewed alongside other layers of long-term care support, such as subsidies and grants, healthcare savings and social safety nets. Mr Ng Chee Meng and Ms Yeo Wan Ling will be heartened to know that the Government has been progressively enhancing these layers of support. We enhanced the Caregivers Training Grant last year to better support individuals undergoing caregiver training. From next year, long-term care recipients and their caregivers will also enjoy further support for long-term care, through enhancements to Home Caregiving Grant and long-term care subsidies. Together, these enhancements to financing mechanisms complement each other to ensure that Singaporeans can access affordable long-term care when they need it most. We recognise that Singaporeans have different long-term care needs and preferences. As earlier mentioned, this is why we have made CareShield Life optional, for existing Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents born 1979 and earlier.”
“And if they feel comfortable with the counsellor talking to them and they are prepared to look for a connection to a physical contact point with social services, this is where the counsellor can then try and link them up with someone that may then take the conversation and the relationship further in the physical space. So, the whole idea is to create options that the youths can access. Those who may be more comfortable with using, say, text messaging and WhatsApp, can also use the WhatsApp function, the text messaging function on the mindline portal. We are just trying to provide a lot more access and options so that there is absolutely no reason why the youths who are prepared to step forward and seek help, will be deterred from it. That is something that we hold ourselves to, to try and provide and to do more in this area. In terms of flowchart for assessment and escalation, in the practice guide, we actually graded our interventions into four different tiers, from tier one to tier four, from lower equity, those who are mentally well, that needed some education to tier four, where there is more of a crisis intervention at the acute care setting, for example, in the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). This entire practice guide also includes a flowchart, as the Member has asked for, that helps care providers, counsellors of different grades and across the whole spectrum of mental health interventions, to see at which point they need to escalate to the next level and to guide them on the appropriate pathway to take, including certain eligibility criteria, certain guides that they can follow so that there is some degree of standardisation and that also forms as a basis for communication across different care providers. 1.02 pm”
“Sir, I thank the Member for his concern on youth mental health and indeed, as he said, it is a complex issue and – as in my previous response to Member Vikram Nair as well – it is not something you can force onto the youths. They have to be encouraged to come forward and be open about sharing and discussion. In terms of KPIs, based on what I have just explained about the complex process, about even getting someone to begin to seek help, it is therefore probably not very practical and it is difficult to set a downstream KPI. Because how soon the person is prepared to step in to receive care, how well they respond to that conversation with their counsellors or their doctors, it is really very much individualised. It will be quite difficult to set a KPI that artificially constrains what the counsellor or the interventionist needs in terms of having time to build a rapport, and build trust and understanding. So, it is a journey that must be taken between the counsellor and the patient or the youth. What we have done is to make sure that at the very upstream, we want to make sure access to care is readily available and that there is no barrier to entry for any youth who is prepared to come forward and seek help. That is why this is the true value of our first stop for mental health, the national mindline 1771. It is meant to be something that can be anonymous so that it does not add that stigmatisation or the fear of the youths of having to see someone face-to-face which they may not be comfortable with. They can pick up a call, speak to a counsellor in a non-judgemental way and without asking them for their identity, to just seek very simple consultations and get counselled, to help them get through the immediate emotional distress that they may be feeling.”
“Sir, in any form of intervention and treatment, the client or patient in this case who needs help has to be cooperative. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to actually force someone to receive any form of intervention or care. But if parents are struggling with where to start to begin the journey of helping their child, they could go to our Mindline.sg website and take a look at some of the resources that are available there. Or for those who need someone to talk to, to get a sense of how to begin that care journey for their children, then to call the national mindline 1771 and speak to one of the counsellors on the phone, or use the text messaging function to contact one of the counsellors who can then guide them on the appropriate resources in the community to begin some of these interactions with the child. Sometimes, it may have to begin with some befriending, so that the child or the adolescent gets comfortable with someone they feel they can open up to and trust, and then gradually bring them on board to receive treatment. So, it is not a straightforward process of dispensing advice or prescribing medication. It may require some degree of interaction to get a sense of what is the best way to approach or to deliver help to the person in need.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to make a factual clarification in my reply to Mr Pritam Singh's supplementary questions earlier, on how many complaints the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) received about illegal platform workers prior to this recent spate of enforcements. [Please refer to "Ensuring Delivery Platform Work is Performed by Singaporeans and Permanent Residents Only", Official Report, 26 September 2025, Vol 96, Issue 6, Oral Answers to Questions section.] I stated it is about 70. Actually, the correct answer should be about 50 per year, since January 2023. Thank you, Sir.”
“If they do see suspicious activities, our commitment to NDCA is we will work closely with them to undertake any enforcement actions as necessary on the ground, so that our presence on the ground will send, hopefully, a strong signal to not just the illegal workers, but also a measure of support to our delivery champions out there that their feedback are taken seriously, and if they have concerns, we will also deal with them on a timely manner.”
“Sir, I would say it is more of a practical consideration. The outsourcing is not limited to a fixed number of companies. The outsourcing can be any company in the logistics sector and that can span thousands of companies. And each of them can employ a certain variable amount of foreign workers based on their quota. And if we were to check it, say, on a once a year basis, or submit on once a year basis, the contracting relationship could change several times in a year and what you get as a snapshot in time on a yearly basis will not reflect the relationship that happens in a dynamic fashion, because this is a very fast moving space. As different demand surfaces in different parts of Singapore, the operator may have to bring in more operators for a surge period of time at peak seasons of the year, for example, and then, maybe let go of that contract. And it can be a two-month arrangement, three-month arrangement. So, the dynamism of it will make that annual aggregation of information not very useful in terms of enforcement. So, to create assurance for our platform workers, I think what we want to do is to reassure them that operators will do more random, frequent facial verification checks. And we will also undertake more stiff penalties for those who are found to be violating the use of their accounts in a legitimate way. And as we catch those, we will publicise them and signal to them that this is something that we will take very tough actions on to send a strong deterrent signal. We will commit to working closely, at MOM and NDCA, so that the NDCA, with their fleet of workers that are already working regularly on a day-to-day basis on the ground, can be our eyes and ears to highlight to us where the hotspots are.”