I WAS sitting in my doctor's waiting room when the newspaper headline screamed at me: 'Will you live to be 80?'

It was a front-page report last Wednesday on the Government's latest plan for reforms to the Central Provident Fund system to help Singaporeans provide for old age, as more people live longer lives.

An accompanying table helpfully assured me that, on average, those in my 40-something age group might expect to live another 39 years.

So, at 41, I am at the midpoint of my life, with just as much ahead as behind me, I consoled myself, trying to shrug off a mid-afternoon mid-life crisis.

It did not make me feel much better, as I surveyed the roomful of ageing, sick and frail people.

Some were staring blankly at a plasma screen in the room on which a repeat of an inane programme called Boomers was being aired.

The topic: The joys of living in a private retirement home, where you might be surrounded by similarly decrepit friends, spending your days making origami cranes.

My mortality was getting to me. I was waiting to have an ultrasound scan on my abdomen. My doctors feared that I might have what they call a fatty liver.

Now, how the fats got into my liver is a mystery to me; how to get them out seems to be a bit of a mystery too, to both my doctors and me.

I am not temperamentally given to much neurotic introspection. But sitting in a doctor's waiting room does strange things to you. My mind wandered to all the recent talk about ageing, and saving for ageing. I wondered what this meant for me and my family.

Look around you. Singaporeans are living longer. Those born early in the 20th century might have counted themselves lucky if they reached 50 or 60. Contrast that with anyone born recently, who would consider it hard luck if he died before reaching his 70s or even 80s.

My dad, who was born in the 1930s, did not quite make it to 70. I hope to raise the family average, and, God willing, get closer to 80.

Relentless advances in technology could help. Just last Thursday, The Straits Times ran an interview with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew musing about the likelihood that soon, modern medicine might enable people to live to 120.

His interviewer held out the prospect of lifespans stretching to a mind-boggling 250 years, as medical science pushed the final frontier further.

But these advances don't come cheap. Rising medical costs will mean that if age does not kill you naturally, then the costly battle against it might just do so.

It is this which has prompted the Government's latest bout of CPF reforms.

Indeed, CPF reform itself is an age-old issue, going back to the 1980s and the ill-fated Howe Yoon Chong report, which provoked an almighty rumpus over suggestions that the CPF withdrawal age might be raised to help people keep their money stashed away for longer, because they were living longer.

That led to the introduction of the CPF Minimum Sum, which was really a 'kinder, gentler' way of locking up CPF savings for longer.

Over the years, without much ado, the CPF Minimum Sum has been raised so that more savings are salted away.

In the latest round of changes, the Minimum Sum will be integrated with the new CPF Life, which will give people a lifelong stream of income by investing part of their minimum sum in an annuity.

It is a clever move. The Lim Pin committee which came up with it also deserves credit for addressing the other key concerns voiced by the public about earlier proposals, which caused a stir.

These include allowing people to get their money back for their families if they died before collecting their payouts, offering choices of packages and getting the trusted CPF, with its higher interest rates, to run the programme.

But most of all, the latest CPF changes are fitting as they will return the system to its original intentions - that of making sure that people have a basic amount for their retirement as they live into their twilight years.

Over the years, more and more demands have been made on the CPF system, such as using it to pay for public housing, then medical care and insurance, and also investments in stocks and shares.

The CPF rate has even been used as a tool to counter rising wage costs in Singapore, being slashed whenever a major economic slowdown hits.

With more people living longer, the strains on the old system was starting to show, and so a dose of reform was called for, like it or not.

Still, many questions remain: How will the poorest, with low CPF balances to begin with, who are excluded from the new scheme, survive in their retirement? Will inflation eat away at the savings, such that even the higher sums to be set aside might not be enough?

These are valid concerns which will need to be addressed.

But anyone who has watched political leaders, here and abroad, grapple with reforming social security systems will know that you can't fix everything that is wrong with them all at once. Most who have tried have failed, backed off or been booted out of office.

So, a package like the one unveiled which addresses, say, six or seven out of the 10 concerns with the existing system might be considered quite a feat.

Even so, selling the reforms will remain a challenge. Consider this: As I sat in the doctor's waiting room, I heard an elderly patient ask her husband: What is this CPF default package? Why is CPF defaulting? What will happen to our money?

Clearly, the Government will have to work at getting people to understand the changes to the system, including explaining jargon like 'default', which only younger tech-savvy people might be familiar with. Try calling it the standard package instead.

Indeed, while the committee has done the right thing by giving people more choices, doing so has made the system even more complex. It should therefore not shrink from making recommendations on what might suit most people, helping them to decide, even if the choice is ultimately theirs.

Most importantly, the public education effort should make abundantly clear that CPF Life is just the most basic of provision for your old-age needs. It cannot and will not cover all retirement needs. Most actuaries estimate that retirees will need about two-thirds of their last drawn income if they are to enjoy the lifestyle they had.

So, with or without CPF Life, there is no running away from having to save and plan for retirement, with housing, transport, food, education and medical bills to worry about, not to mention inflation.

These dark thoughts swirled around me as I lay belly-up on the doctor's bed as she prodded my abdomen with the ultrasound machine.

'Yes, you have a mildly fatty liver,' she declared at last.

Not to worry, not all that much you can do, she continued, somewhat too chirpily. Eat less red meat and fried food, drink less alcohol, exercise more, she ventured.

Looking at my chart, she added: 'You're a newspaper editor?' You know all of this, right?'

I grunted, helpless in my disrobed state.

The good doctor smiled and added sagely: 'But do so in moderation.

'Otherwise, life is not worth living, right?'

Indeed, not even if I do so till I am 120.

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