Medical savings accounts in Singapore: a critical inquiry

With the United States currently experimenting with medical savings accounts (MSAs), it is appropriate to revisit the Singapore experience, where the practice has been in place for a decade and half. Singapore runs a modern, effective health system at a fraction of the cost of most systems operating in the developed West. Although MSAs contribute to the framework of a cultural rhetoric of personal responsibility for health care, this article argues that the heart of the Singapore system of health funding, with its financial discipline, is government control of inputs and outputs and strict rationing of health services according to wealth.