Today, I was at the adjudication hearing on my insurance claim with Aviva, which had earlier denied my claim for breast cancer. I am prevented by the adjudication agreement to discuss the details of the proceedings, but let me make one point: it's just business.

That's all it is. Whatever you might read in the brochures, see in the advertising, at the end of the day it is just business. Ask yourself - the Shield plans all do not ask for a medical examination before cover is granted. They will take your premiums. It is only when an illness occurs that they conduct extensive medical investigation.

I ask you, is this not a little like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted? What good is all this to the person who has been faithfully forking over their premiums prior to diagnosis? Oh, it is a mass plan, therefore we need to keep costs down, say insurers. But, hang on - surely the objective of insurance is coverage? Or does that merely translate to a false sense of security to the consumer? A removal of their options to seek alternative means of financial support if there is an illness discovered in the pre-insurance check-up? Or are these plans a convenient way for insurers to fleece the unsuspecting Singapore public?

You know, for the price of S$2.3million per year, I believe I, as a citizen, am entitled to more than mere parliamentary rhetoric from my MPs. I would like to see my personal rights actively protected and promoted, not rationalised away. All I can see, and I believe many other people see this too, is that we keep forking out for what we are told is necessary. However, I would like to see some tangible benefit to me, the individual. (Yes, I am throwing a tantrum.)

We could all name any number of schemes ( and I won't talk about that elephant in the corner, by the name of Education System; the pig ERP trying to take off by the window; or that cow, called COE, chewing on the money plant on the table) which are less than successful. Yet, hey, do we throw things out completely to come up with innovative ideas? Go right back to the drawing board? Nope. We just keep taxing the people and maybe one day, that pig will fly, the cow will roll over, and the elephant will blush a nice lobster red.

What about the constant round of retrenchments here in our little island? It is, no matter how much land we reclaim and how many IRs are built, a small market. With the constant round of retrenchments, and the practices I am seeing on the part of people who take our money in the name of supporting us when times are hard (then let us down), it appears the individual Singaporean is pretty much on his own. Sink or swim. Alternatives, niches and untapped markets are few in this fair isle.

I would like to see some rather novel ideas from our best and brightest minds, who are being paid millions, come up with more to help the workers whose taxes pay for their lifestyles and the very comfy leather parliament seat.

Not another self-help scheme to give us new skills. How does that put food on the table while we go on the interview rounds? And it is for sure that we do not all land that job with the very first interview. What happens in the mean time? What about executives who lose their jobs? Re-skilling does not help them. I would like to see some like being exchanged for like - financial support in exchange for their nice fat pay cheques, which, I might add, are handed out in both lean and fat years. A co-funded rainy day chest for each citizen, perhaps.

If we are going to peg our leaders' paychecks to the private sector's, why don't we have a private sector style performance appraisal? Salary bands, for instance? 360 performance reviews for everyone, with the opportunity to be retrenched once the economy is down, or be fired if performance benchmarks are not met? A ranking system? When was the last time our government was rightsized? What about KPIs clearly set with delivery within a certain timeframe? All CEOs have this and answer to their boards. The private sector have fat paychecks because they are subject to the risk of firing and losing their rice bowls if they do not perform. They do not have iron rice bowls。

In Singapore, it is always 'just business'. I believe it is possible for us to have 'just business' with a heart, with integrity, with an eye to a better overall lifestyle for all of us, not merely the have's - the have-jobs, have-healths, the have-safety nets, the have-voices, the have-constituencies.

What does it take to get there? It will take someone at the top encouraging - sincerely- this movement. Gee, now there's an idea. Cross my palm, please!

Today, I ran into a junior college chum from way, (way), back and found out that she, her sister-in-law, and another classmate were all cancer survivors. And although it had been three years since her diagnosis, when I looked back after leaving her, I saw that her eyes were red. "I don't think about it," she had kept saying when I tried to ask her about her cancer journey.

Also today, I saw the case worker who was handling my arbitration with the insurance company. She said that cancer is 'not that common'. When I told her that it strikes 30% of Singaporeans, she said that that proved it was not that common.

But taking my own experience, I believe that 1 degree of separation is getting significantly narrow. Perhaps it is my age - once you hit the big 4-0, cancer does tend to make its presence felt. Your risk of contracting the disease increases.

I have never, in my entire life, felt old. In fact, I am trying to get Bryan Adam's song, Eighteen Till I Die, put on my mobile phone as the ring tone. Today, however, I actually felt old. I was walking around a mall, and everyone there (almost) was younger than I. I looked at the trendy young girls, and found myself thinking,"Gee, where did the time go?"

I feel even older when so many people I know have cancer. When someone tells me that cancer is uncommon, it is more than just plain ignorance. It is also the foolishness of youth talking. With my diagnosis, I have crossed the line. I am on the other side of the hill now.

We know that the incidence of cancer is rising, just as we know that more people are being diagnosed at a younger age. Yet cancer is more than a disease of age - it is also a disease of lifestyle and it is reaching its frightening claws out to more and younger people, as Singaporeans become affluent. Every time I read in the papers about a cry for more fine dining restaurants, I think: all that butter and cream - killer food! But with affluence, such indulgent eating will become the norm and, more than likely, the incidence of cancer.

My point is this: cancer survivors are the new marginalised. The outcry for the aged, the unemployed, the physically challenged started some years ago, and is still going on. Singapporeans have a hard time taking a communal view of things - we are a 'me and mine first' type of society. As long as someone whose job brings them in contact with cancer survivors regularly can say 'cancer is not common', we have a problem. And we should not allow this problem to grow.

As long as there is this degree of ignorance in our society, cancer survivors will find themselves marginalised, with rights and needs unrecognised, treated as being 'less than'.

Cancer survivors can help themselves by talking about their needs, their experiences. I understand the feral push to move past the diagnosis, to get on with life. But -if we don't educate society at large about us, and what it means to be a survivor, who will? There is a powerful lot of cancer survivors out there - we have all glimpsed the face of death - and survived. Let's take the strength built on the experiences of the journey, and bring others into our conversation. And in helping ourselves, perhaps we will sensitise our fellows on the responsibility of the majority towards sub-groups - the consideration, the obligation to listen, understand and,ultimately, to treat us as one of them, with the same rights - to a job, to financial provisioning, to acceptance. As normal, fully alive. For that is what we survivors are - and absolutely nothing less.