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"If you don't take the Covid vaccine, we're gonna treat you like an American"

Trevor Noah and Ronny Chieng have praised Singapore for forcing the unvaccinated to pay medical bills.

Speaking on The Daily Show, Noah explained how Singapore is punishing those who refuse to take a Coronavirus vaccine.

“Singapore says anyone who is unvaccinated by choice will not get free Covid treatments,” Noah said. “Right now the government is paying for treatment for any resident who is sick with Covid. 85% of eligible people in Singapore are fully vaccinated. The government said people who don’t want to get vaccinated make up the bulk of new cases and hospitalisations.”

“Singapore isn’t messing around,” he elaborated. “In America if you say you don’t want the vaccine, the government is like, ‘Please, please take the vaccine, please. We’ll give you money.'”

“Singapore’s like, ‘Ok, ok, it’s gonna be like that. You best bring your checkbook to the hospital, damn, because those ventilators are by the hour, bitch. They really don’t mess around in Singapore, man. This is the same country that will cane your ass just for littering.”

“They are like the parents down the block that actually do the shit that you threaten your kids with.”

Noah then presented the sceptical argument – “Why shouldn’t you have to pay for your preventable health problems?”

“I mean would it be fair for you to pay the same rates as the guys from Jackass?” He said. “Most people don’t have to be treated for being rolled down a mountain in a potter potty.”

“It’s not fair. But at the same time though, it is a slippery slope.”

“Because using that logic, should alcoholics pay for their own liver transplant? Should overweight people pay for their heart medication? Should New York Jets fans have to pay for their own antidepressants? Where do you draw the line?”

Chieng, who was born in Malaysia, responded by saying, “I don’t think people realise, Singapore’s saying that if you don’t take the Covid vaccine, you have to pay for your Covid treatment.”

“Which is a huge deal in Singapore because Singapore essentially has universal healthcare. So for them to come out and say, ‘You are going to pay for your own stuff, if you don’t take the Covid vaccine, we’re gonna treat you like an American.”

“That’s huge.”

Noah then asked Chieng, “that’s a punishment in Singapore?”

“In Singapore, being treated like an American in the healthcare system is the biggest punishment you can give someone,” Chieng responded. “You’re gonna have to worry about your co-pays, you have to look at your disbursements, you have to call Blue Cross, Blue Shield.”

“In Singapore, the healthcare system just works. We never… I can’t explain this in 5 seconds, so no one is going to care, but essentially it takes free market principles and socialist principles and combines them together. All they care about is efficiency in Singapore. They don’t politicise solutions.”