2024年3月6日，新加坡卫生部高级政务次长拉哈尤·玛赞回复议员有关禁烟和残疾人补贴议题。
以下内容为新加坡眼根据国会英文资料翻译整理：
主席：严燕松先生。
阿裕尼集选区议员 严燕松先生：谢谢主席。我的问题是提给高级国会秘书拉哈尤的。
我很高兴听到政府没有排除禁烟的可能性。我想问一下，政府是否正在积极推进这个计划，以及预期的时间表是什么？为了我们下一代的健康，我希望我们能更快地推进这个计划，不要等其他国家先行。
其次，关于残疾人（PwDs）的医疗补贴，我注意到高级政务次长说医疗补贴不是根据特定人群，而是根据收入阶梯分级的。
首先，高级政务次长是否同意，这种情况并不适用于“建国一代”（Pioneer Generation）和“立国一代”（Merdeka Generation），他们不论收入如何都能获得额外的补贴？所以，这个政策是否也可以应用到残疾人身上？第二，医疗的经济状况评估是否总能考虑到残疾人日常生活中产生的许多其他费用，这些费用会降低他们支付医疗费用的能力，无论其家庭收入如何？
拉哈尤玛赞女士：谢谢这位议员的问题。
首先，关于烟草禁令的问题，我想再澄清一下，正如我在讲话中提到的，并不是说我们现在什么都没做，或者在反对烟草方面没有改进或努力。从结果和成果来看，我们的表现比其他地方要好。我们在决定采取哪些措施和方法时，必须全面考虑问题。
我们采取多管齐下的方法。我们考虑了税收、标准化包装、提高法定最低年龄；这些措施在很大程度上显示了很好的效果。另一方面，在评估烟草禁令时，我们也在关注其他地方的结果，这可能并不一定会产生我们想要的效果。
所以，我认为我们需要一些时间来评估是否有其他措施能够改变这种情况。在这方面，我们还有一些更紧迫的问题需要处理，比如电子烟。因此，我们确实需要集中精力处理这些紧迫的问题。
关于你提到的对残疾人的支持，我非常理解你的观点。事实上，这也是我与其他部门讨论过的问题，关于对残疾人的支持。我们确实需要根据具体情况来考虑。目前，我们在提供支持时，已经在逐步增强。
我可以说，作为一个普遍原则，如果有家庭有特定的问题需要帮助，我们有分层支持系统，他们肯定可以得到所需的帮助。话虽如此，我认为这是我们将继续关注和改进的领域，在适当的情况下，我们会继续加强援助。
以下是英文质询内容：
The Chairman: Mr Gerald Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Thank you, Sir. My clarifications are for Senior Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu.
I am glad to hear that the Government does not rule out a generational smoking ban. Can I ask whether the Government is actively moving forward on this plan and what is the timeline it is looking at? For the sake of the health of our future generations, I hope that we can move faster and be an early mover on this and not wait for other countries.
Secondly, on healthcare subsidies for PwDs, I note the Senior Parliamentary Secretary said that healthcare subsidies are not based on specific categories of people, but are tiered according to income.
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But first, does the Senior Parliamentary Secretary agree that this is not the case for the Pioneer and Merdeka Generation who get additional subsidies regardless of their income status? So, can this be applied as well to PwDs? And second, does healthcare means-testing always take into account the many other expenses that PwDs incur for their daily living, which will lower their ability to pay for healthcare regardless of their family income?
Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I thank the Member for the questions.
Firstly, on the issue of the tobacco cohort ban, I would just like to clarify again, as I have mentioned in my speech, that it is not as though nothing is being done at this juncture or there are no improvements or efforts with regard to our efforts against tobacco. As you can see from the results and the outcomes, we are doing quite well as compared to other places. In deciding what are some of the measures and approaches that we take, we really have to look at things in totality.
We take a multi-pronged approach. We looked at taxes, we looked at standardised packaging, we increased the minimum legal age; and this has actually to a large extent, shown very good results. On the other hand, as we are assessing the tobacco cohort ban, we are looking at the outcomes in other places and it may not necessarily generate the same outcome that we want.
So, I think it will take some time for us to assess whether there are other measures that are going to change this. And on that front, there are some more salient points or more imperative issues that we need to deal with, with regard to vaping for example. So, we do need to focus our energies in dealing with some of those emergent issues.
Your second question related to the support for the PwDs, I appreciate the point and I can understand. In fact, this is something I also raised with other Ministries, in terms of support for PwDs. We do really have to look at appropriate circumstances. At the moment, a lot of the support that we have given, we have looked at enhancing as it goes along.
And I can say, as a general principle, if there are specific issues of families who need help, we have our tiered-support system where they can definitely get the help they need. Having said that, I think this is something that we will continue to look at and see, where appropriate, we can continue to enhance.
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