Excuse me, this is a purely financial evaluation for KWSP (not a topic on govt hospitals) and that the above are my assumptions and opinion so I would appreciate you not making sweeping statements such as the above without knowing me... Chances are, you are one who doesn't know the real world, kid

Also did you by any chance know how much was the hospital bill from your dad's friend's govt hospital bill? Did you get a comparison of how much it would actually cost in a private hospital? I know cos someone close to me has been on chemo therapy before. Your opinion is purely based on hearsay (not from your personal experience and fyi.. totally inadmissable in court for a reason as such)

Also let me ask you this, have you ever been to a govt hospital for medical treatment ever? When you get a fever, where do you go? Private clinic? Ohhhhh so how come? When you had an accident, again did you pay a visit to govt hospital? So unless you do go seek treatments are govt hospital, don't judge me on my opinion of govt hospitals.

Do consider other factors such as:-
1. for quite a reasonable amount, one can always purchase insurance especially those life insurance that comes with an immmediate disbursement of an amount upon diagnosis of any one of 36 critical illness to enable one to seek medical treatment wherever needed (be it govt, private or overseas)
2. Waiting list at govt hospital especially for serious treatments can be quite long indeed. My sibling, cousin and friends have served in govt hospitals for their housemanship has shared many experience with govt hospitals. So again, when your life is at stake on a medical treatment, where would you go? Govt or private?? After housemanship, where do you think the docs go and why do you think they go there? (so don't you think the best brains would have gone as well?)
3. Yes, no doubt some govt hospitals like UH, USM can be quite good but then again do you think it's all the same quality from all govt hospitals? Ever check out the wait list at UH and USM for serious treatments? And I think you need referral to be able to seek treatment for serious diseases/illnesses at places like UH and USM and can't just walk in and say "hey I wan chemo".
4. When being treated at a govt hospital, the quality of medicine and equipment cannot be compared to the quality from a private hospital at all. How come? That's because private hospitals are money making, they charge 100% back to its customers so can afford to buy and give the best medicine/equipment available (depends whats the demand, so they supply). Govt hospitals operates on govt's financing, so have stricter budgets so might not always buy the best medicine out there but probably the medicine is good enough (but not best) and at a lower price. Sounds doubtful? Next time go ask a govt hospital how long is the wait to do a CT scan. Reason, CT scan machines are limited and govt hospitals cannot buy more cos expensive. In a private hospital, since the usage of the CT scan machine is chargeable back to a customer, the hospital would have purchased ample to cater to demands. Result : CT scan in private hospital can be done on demand basis.
5. In govt hospital, you cannot ask for the type of treatment you want and it is the doc that gives you the treatment that the doc feel is best for you. In private the choices are all put onto the table for you to choose (but with price list as well of course...)
Oh boy, you really have heard many things hor? FYI, the above all can be minimised by way of proper personal financial planning. One should not just dump money into KWSP without planning how it can sustain us during our retirement age. You need to work out something like what I did, calculate how much is the present value of KWSP contributions now and how much Future Value its gonna be at retirement age and how it can sustain you then.
You really are a small kid, fundamental of finance is that high risk equal high return and it works vice versa. So without risk, there is no return! There is nothing certain (even savings a/c and FD is not 100% safe, check BNM ruling as it states that banks needs to only guarantee up to something like RM70k of your money with them. Anything above this amount, if the bank closes down then it is only max RM70k and the rest bye bye) but one can easily diversify this risk out with a portfolio of investments and not placing all eggs in one basket.

Also on serious health problem, have you ever heard of insurance?
FYI, asking those who have retired cant help us at all.. RM50,000 can carry you a long way now and might be enough for retirees now but in 20 years its value would have dropped considerably (probably like RM10,000 now). So the best is work it out yourself and plan your personal finances or if you can't then look for a certified Personal Financial Planner to help you.

This topic was started to ask on 2 evaluations and you pop up with your reply that simply gives no useful feedback to the poster. Please go back to Kopitiam or raise a topic on govt hospital in Real World Issues and I will come to entertain you there.

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Added on July 10, 2010, 6:51 pm

actually working for govt has another benefit... tax free allowances... I believe IRB deem these allowances as reimbursement hence not taxable. Go check it up...