SCMP Debate: Should a means test be applied to old age allowance?

kaiziart

IMHO, I believe that a means test should be applied to the elderly allowance.

The original purpose of the scheme is to provide extra allowance to those elderly who are really in need. If an elderly is already rich enough to support his own life, I see no points to give the allowance to those who don't need them. Those elderly did contribute to the society for long, and I admit that they should be supported,  but shouldn't we consider the long term effects of such policy?

It costs to support all elderly in Hong Kong. In the future, there will be much more elderlies as the population is currently aging. The sum of money to support all of them is very high. In addition, the major source of income of the Government is form land auction, and the supply of land is scare as we all know. It is foreseeable that the Government is running out of ways to get money. In such cases shouldn't the Government spend money only on those who need it, before it is too late to save money?

Let the money being spent wisely and usefully.

kaiziart

I want to ask a question
If an elderly is already rich enough to support his own life, will he g ...
無名小卒=] 發表於 21-1-2013 18:29

Of course those richest ppl won't take that little amount of "welfare".
However, there are atill quite a number of elderly who are not very rich, but enough to support their lives. Therefore, a means test can be applied to classify those who need more help and those who need less. Take Singapore as an example. The Government there also gave money to the citizens just like what the HK Gov did few years ago. Instead of giving all citizens the same amount of money, the Government chose to implement a means test. From the test, those with no/less income were given more money while those having more income were given less. The same method can be applied to elderly allowance nowadays.

Concerning the medical allowance, I agree that there are rooms for discussion about the upper limit of saving. Also, there are absolutely rooms of improvement for the health care voucher scheme. However, it is beyond the scope of today's discussion.

In conclusion, I believe there is a need to imply a means test on the elderly allowance scheme. Otherwise, those who really in need cannot receive the help they deserve. It is also a way to prevent wasting of the society's resources.

P.S. How to close the ads? They are annoying and they block the words.

kaiziart

We cannot close the ads-,-
Even if there is some elderly are rich enough to support their lives,
...
無名小卒=] 發表於 21-1-2013 22:39

    Maybe I should use a better vocabulary: utilize. I admit that it is always good to show respect to our dear elderly through various ways, but we can find a balance between providing welfare to the elderly and utilizing the resources.
As I said in the last follow-up post, we can determine who are more desperately in need by the mean of means tests. Thus, more allowance can be given to those. There is no need to give all perple the same amount of money. Instead, we can decide how much we can give to certain groups of people (with certain saving).

I agree that everyone has the rights to enjoy the growth of economy, and I also agree that the Gov should provide allowance when ones are in need. What I want to add is that we can do it better by finding out who are more desperate. Doing means tests doesn't mean that the Gov doesn't trust the citizens. Means test is an effective way to find out who needs more allowance.

kaiziart

Doing mean test requires resources too.
if government is trust their citizen, there is no need to  ...
無名小卒=] 發表於 22-1-2013 09:21

OK I misunderstood what you meant by old age allowance.  -_-
I thought that you had been talking about the latest allowance scheme that still in discussion in LegCo.

Talking about CSSA, I think you have to know that it is extremely harsh for elderly to apply for CSSA. Relatives of the elderly applicants (especially their children) will have to sign a paper(衰仔紙) to ensure that they won't give any kinds of supporting to the elderly. Many of them don't want their children to sign such paper so they refuse to apply for CSSA.


P.S. Shall we just wrap up the discussion? Just you and I are talking and it's just boring. -_-

kaiziart

回復 17# 無名小卒=]


    actually I haven't read the article hehe