Premier Yu Shyi-kun refused to be nailed down yesterday on how his administration will respond to a Legislative Yuan resolution to ask for a halt to hikes in premiums and self-payment fees under the National Health Insurance program.
Responding to journalists' questions while arriving for a DPP seminar on national policy, Yu reiterated a statement he made the previous evening that he regrets the Legislative Yuan's decision to call for the scrapping of the hikes.
He said the Executive Yuan will study the resolution carefully before deciding what to do.
Yu's chief of staff, Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳), said DPP lawmakers have recommended that the administration should ask the Legislative Yuan to reconsider the resolution, in which case, the opposition parties that joined hands in pushing through the resolution will have difficultly getting the two-thirds of the legislative votes needed to uphold the resolution.
However, Liu said, the request for reconsideration should be a last resort, in light of the confrontation it will cause between the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan.
Department of Health head Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) said on Friday night that his ministry will ignore the legislature's resolution, pointing out that the insurance program, which has already run up heavy debts, will go bankrupt without the hikes, which took force Sept. 1.
The department's deputy head Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), who served as chief of the National Insurance Bureau for eight years before assuming his present job, said the hike, which represents an average of NT$40 more per person per month, is worthwhile in light of the fact that it will keep the program from collapsing.
DPP Legislative Yuan whip Ker Chien-ming who failed to dissuade the opposition from blocking the premium hike said Friday that the resolution is a non-binding recommendation that the Executive Yuan is not obliged to heed.
The opposition parties that support the resolution have threatened to revoke the Department of Health's power to raise the premiums by revising the law and withholding the NT$24 billion budget for the National Health Insurance Bureau, should the department ignore their calls.
Opposition KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) praised the resolution as "a victory for the general public" and accused the government of trying to "turn the public into an automatic teller machine" from which it withdraws money to plug the financial holes in the insurance program caused by its mismanagement.
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