The MediSave Account can be used for a wide variety of costly medical treatments (e.g. hospitalisation expenses, selected outpatient treatments), and MediSave Care. A higher withdrawal amount for long-term care would result in a faster depletion of MediSave Account balances, which may affect an individual’s ability to pay for other medical expenses in the future.

Instead, MediSave Care complements insurance schemes such as CareShield Life/ElderShield/Supplement payouts, existing Government subsidies, Government assistance schemes, community support and other personal savings and family support, to help individuals better meet their long-term care financing needs. In deciding the MediSave Care withdrawal amount, the Government took into account the basic long-term care costs for a range of services and settings, other sources of long-term care funding such as those mentioned before, as well as the need to balance withdrawal amounts with MediSave adequacy. 

Meanwhile, ElderFund is targeted at helping lower-income Singaporeans who cannot benefit from CareShield Life or ElderShield and have low MediSave balances to draw on for their long-term care needs.

This information is sourced from MOH.