The head of the Department of Health (DOH,
"Although we are still waiting for the Executive Yuan to make the final decision as to the amount of the increase, the principles of the changes have already been set," DOH Director-General Lee Ming-liang (李明亮) said yesterday at a press conference.
"If we were to withdraw our plan just because we are being attacked by the opposition parties, we would achieve nothing," he said, stressing that National Health Insurance policies were set when the KMT was in power.
"They can criticize the department for not raising rates earlier to improve the debt-ridden program," he said. "But if they are criticizing other things, I will not accept it."
Under the National Insurance Act, the insurer may adjust the premium rate if the current rate is lower than 6 percent, the reserved fund has dropped to its minimum required level or when payment schedules are affecting the financing of the program.
Moreover, under the act, the beneficiaries are required to pay at least 20 percent of the cost of outpatient services.
The current premium is 4.25 percent and patients pay an average of 10.55 percent of the cost outpatient treatment.
The DOH announced its proposal to raise premiums to either 4.55 percent or 4.75 percent of monthly salary to the Cabinet on Wednesday.
The department estimates the hike would raise an additional NT$20 billion of income a year.
Lee also showed yesterday the finding of a recent survey carried out by the department, which indicates that more than 75 percent of people support the proposal to raise the premium rate to sustain the program.
However, another survey released yesterday, conducted by the KMT legislative caucus, showed that 72 percent are against the hike in outpatient fees.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching