High Medical Cost for Singaporean with Foreign Spouse

These days I've been thinking a lot about the money I spent on my wife's pregnancy, so far it all added up to around S$1000 and that's only for 3 visits at the gynae, all within a week, and I'm the type who is very careful with spending money so I'm still getting used to spending so much, so fast. Of course I don't forget that my wife is a special case due to her operation but still, even if considering only the consultation and ultrascan charges, it's still a significant amount.

I have a colleague who knows a bit of my story and today he suggested getting insurance for my wife but actually I have spoken to my insurance agent last year, way before we decided to have a baby, and she told me that it's tough to get my wife insured due to her operation, furthermore it was a major operation i.e. open heart surgery. Plus she has to be on life-long medication. So when insurance is not available, and my Medisave is untouchable, what else can I do? Pay in cash.

But I'm glad I've been stingy so I managed to save up some money and put most of it in stocks, but actually not much, I have about S$6300 worth of stocks I can sell, and I have about S$900 cash right now, and I hope that cash can last till I get my salary so I don't have to touch my stocks. Anyway I'll be getting my mid year bonus on this coming payday so it's really something to look forward to.

I'm also thinking of the worst case scenario i.e. all stocks sold and all cash burned out, I think I would probably take a loan from DBS, they've been bugging me a lot, I have lost count of the number of calls I received from their telemarketers, and the number of letters with offerings of low interest loans. Oh I remember I got a call from them yesterday, this lady was asking whether I would like to take a loan as backup fund, now that's really odd, why would anyone take a loan as backup fund? Well I would if there's no interest.

I've also been thinking about how other Singaporeans with foreign spouse are managing, especially those with lower per-capita income than me. You see, my salary is S$3300, there's only one person depending on me which is my wife so 3300 divided by 2 is 1650, we are not struggling but no luxury for us, we can forget about car, private housing, expensive holidays or branded goods but we are alright with that because we also wish to keep life simple, you can say we don't have a choice but well, one has got to think from the positive angle right. Today I saw the following part from this blog,
...The article is about a security guard called Damien Koh who fell in love and married a Vietnamese woman. His wife was granted a LTVP but not PR (or citizenship) because he earned $1500 a month. They have 2 boys both are Singaporeans. Two weeks ago, Damien had a heart attack and passed away. The article discussed how his wife is at a lost because Damien the sponsor for her LTVP  is no longer around. Luckily, the MP for the area is Lily Neo and she will try her best to help her with the LTVP . When contacted, Dr. Lily Neo said there are "many foreign spouses living in HDB rental flats in her ward".
I'm not sure whether his wife was working, and they have 2 boys, must have spent a lot on medical costs since his wife was a LTVP holder and back in 2011, there's no such thing as LTVP+. But let's say his wife was earning the same amount, so they have 3000, divided by 4 is 750, not even half of what we have now, I can say that we are much better off than they were. Sigh, sometimes I will be thinking what if I married a local lady instead, life would be so easy, but doesn't that sound really stupid? Why should I restrict my choice of partner based on her nationality? Well everyone will argue back saying oh marrying a foreigner is like that, it's expensive, that kind of argument really makes me chuckle, so are they saying local ladies are cheap?

Comments

Unknown said…
just in case anyone reading this, pls note that any policy that you buy for your wife will exclude all pregnancy related issue for the first 10 to 12 months. this is because the insurance coys do not want you to buy the policies just for the pregnancy period.

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