A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker has proposed including Chinese students in Taiwan under National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage as the party strives to address basic human rights and to turn around its image of being “anti-China.”
DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) is considering proposing an amendment to the National Health Insurance Act (全民健康保險法) to enforce a mandatory coverage of Chinese students who have enrolled in universities in Taiwan and have stayed in the country for more than six months, the Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday.
Under current law, NHI coverage for foreign workers and students with residence permits only applies to those who have stayed in Taiwan for more than six months. Chinese students, who cannot obtain residence permits, are not included.
DPP Department of China Affairs Director Honigmann Hong (洪財隆) said the party “welcomes the initiative, which is proposed out of humanitarian concerns.”
The DPP will officially announce its position on the issue after a comprehensive discussion among party members and the legislative caucus in the new session, which is still more than one month away, DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said.
There is not yet party consensus on the initiative.
Hong Chih-kun (洪智坤), a DPP Central Executive Committee member, said in a post on his Facebook page that health insurance coverage was not an “inherent right,” but a paid service.
The initiative should have been discussed and deliberated as an item of cross-strait negotiation, Hong said.
What should be discussed is the integration or mutual recognition of health insurance systems across the Taiwan Strait because more than 1 million Taiwanese residing in China are also in need of medical care, he said.
Hong said Wu’s initiative “has got the point wrong” and urged Wu to reconsider the proposal.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesperson Ma Wei-kuo (馬瑋國) said the party welcomed the DPP’s proposal, as long as the DPP proposed the idea from the perspective of protecting the rights of Chinese students.
“However, if the DPP did so for political purposes, the party would only let Taiwanese people down,” she said.
Ma questioned the DPP’s stance on the policy of Chinese students in Taiwan, as the party had lashed out at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for damaging the rights of Taiwanese students when the president instructed the Ministry of Education to relax regulations to attract more Chinese students to Taiwan. Ma said the DPP was flip-flopping on cross-strait issues.
“The DPP criticized the government’s handling of the Chinese students policy, but now it claims it wants to defend the rights of Chinese students. The DPP’s flip-flop on cross-strait policies will probably confuse its supporters,” she said.
If the DPP plans to make adjustments to its cross-strait policies, it should not only discuss the inclusion of Chinese students in the health insurance program, but develop a more comprehensive policy on Chinese students, she said.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS