Singapore has a population of 5.6 million people. It offers universal health care coverage to citizens, with a financing system based on the twin philosophies of individual responsibility and affordable health care for all. Coverage is funded through a combination of government subsidies, multlayered health care financing schemes and private individual savings which is all administered at the national level. Singapore spends 4.7 percent of its gross domestic product on health care.9 Costs are controlled first and foremost by fostering and controlling market competition: the government directly regulates the market when it fails to keep costs down.