Cultural Interpretation of Health Care Systems in Singapore and Germany

Abstract

With the challenge of welfare state from expenditure and the pressure for seeking solutions, more and more eyes are cast upon foreign countries and expect to find efficient resolutions. However, since the welfare state became a favored topic of research, most studies have focused on its political, economic or historical aspects. A remarkable attribute of the entire literature about welfare state is its lack of genuine interest in the cultural aspects. This study concentrates on health care issues within a theoretical framework of culture. It aims at exploring the cultural impact on health care policies and systems by based on a comparison between Singapore and Germany.

The main question in this study is two-folded. Under observation first is what kind of similarities and differences can be found in health care system between Singapore and Germany, and secondly, how these differences can be interpreted by culture. In order to find the answers to these questions, the thesis elaborates the significance of application of cultural analysis on welfare and offers a feasible analytic perspective of cultural idea and institutional traditions. This study conducts lots of comparative observation of health care policies and systems in Singapore and Germany from the selected aspects: humanitarian assistance, religious sense on poor relief and the role of family and state.

By combining the theoretical and empirical analysis together, this study argues that health care system in a given society is not only a result of economic and political development but also a product of culture. The concepts of equality, equity, family, state, etc. within different social value systems can be highly different, which determines diversity in health care systems. Therefore, when conceiving an innovation we need to take cultural factors into account. Only by making full preparation for underlines cultural barriers can reform acts be carried out. Especially, when Germany government wants to learn from Singaporean experience, it must realize that health policies are not only documents, but also represent and reflect cultural values and be aware of gaining Singaporean cost containing at the cost of equity, adequacy and universality in humanitarian assistance pursued by Germans. Finally, emphasizing cultural impact on health care policies is not a sort of cultural determinism. It is the interplay relation between culture and humans that promotes culture and human themselves to evolve together.