Health system report alleges rampant waste

A group of opposition lawmakers said yesterday that remarks made Friday by a presidential adviser and senior hospital administrator reinforced allegations of wastefulness on the part of the National Health Insurance Bureau made in a report they issued a week ago.

"We issued the report last week, but nobody cared about it. Were it not for the remarks of doctor Chen Kai-mo (陳楷模) on Friday, no one would be interested in our report," an assistant to Legislator Sisy Chen (陳文茜) said yesterday.

Sisy Chen was referring to comments made at a press conference Friday by Chen Kai-mo, a presidential adviser and director of the Cathay General Hospital. Chen Kai-mo said that some doctors conduct unneeded examinations or unnecessary surgeries in order to obtain more money from the national health insurance program.

"For example, fibrocystic change in the breast is the most common benign condition of the breast. But some doctors would ask patients having the condition to undergo breast ultrasounds or breast biopsies," Chen Kai-mo said.

These unnecessary examinations waste a lot of money and medical resources, the doctor added. "Apparently our health insurance system has loopholes."

In response to Chen Kai-mo's criticisms, an official from the HIB clarified that the examples the doctor mentioned are occasional cases and certainly not common place.

But the lawmakers' complaints did not merely reiterate Chen Kai-mo's accusations. For example, the lawmakers' report alleged that the bureau wasted more than NT$ 2.3 billion on public relations and advertisements last year.

The legislators' report charged that to advertise the national health insurance program, the bureau produced a number of souvenirs, including pen stands, forks and memorial coins.

The report also pointed out the HIB spent about NT$7.4 million to sponsor a range of outside activities in order to maintain public relations -- including the Taipei fireworks festival, Kaohsiung lantern festival, a university debate competition and a baseball game.

The lawmakers openly challenged these expenditures and asked what they had to do with health insurance or improving the delivery of health services.

In response to the charges, the health bureau's Vice President Chen Yi-fong (陳逸峰) yesterday denied the allegations and took exception to the suggestion that money was wasted on advertising. He said that the bureau actually had a NT$2 billion budget for advertising, and that NT$1.9 billion of that was used for producing the new health insurance identification cards.

Furthermore, Chen Yi-fong (陳逸峰) insisted that the bureau never used the NHI premiums to do advertising or promotions. He said the reason that the bureau made souvenirs and participated in public activities was so people would know more about the health insurance program.

The controversy comes at a bad time for the bureau which is facing a huge deficit. To help reduce the deficit, the bureau raised NHI premiums from 4.25 percent to 4.55 percent of a person's monthly salary on Sept. 1.