Legislative resolutions demanding an end to the health insurance fee hikes and the takeover of credit institutions by commercials banks returned to the spotlight again yesterday as Cabinet officials and DPP lawmakers questioned the legality of such moves.
They contended the government is not obligated to observe the resolutions that opposition lawmakers rammed through the legislature before the end of its last session.
"The lawmaking body has no right to meddle with executive discretion by attaching resolutions to the government's budget," DPP Legislator Charles Chiang (江昭儀) told a public hearing in the legislature yesterday.
"Members who dislike any public policies should seek to redress them through legal means," Chiang said.
On Jan. 10, the legislature attached 13 resolutions to the government's budget that requested, among other things, the Cabinet halt health insurance fee hikes and return 36 debt-ridden credit units of farmers' associations to those groups.
The Department of Health and the Ministry of Finance have said they would have difficulty carrying out those resolutions.
The government's legal experts have said the resolutions are non-binding.
Chiang -- who has petitioned the Council of Grand Justices for a ruling on the controversy -- said the two resolutions are problematic since neither has anything to do with the government budget.
Budgetary codes say government agencies should abide by qualifications and constraints added to their proposed budgets.
The requirement, however, does not apply to terms that clash with existing laws.
DPP Legislator Lee Chen-nan (
He said that under the National Health Insurance Law (
The present premium of 4.55 percent of a worker's salary took effect last September.
Previously the premium had been 4.25 percent of salary. In addition, patients have to shoulder higher co-payment rates.
"The plummeting health reserve prompted planners to adjust the fee schedule," said Day Guey-ing (戴桂英), a Department of Health official said at the news conference.
"They had recommended larger hikes but settled for a more modest version to avoid a public backlash," Day said.
Officials have repeatedly said they cannot keep the National Health Insurance Program afloat without an increase in premiums and co-payment fees.
But opponents insist that the program would remain viable if authorities step up efforts to crack down on dishonest medical institutions and pharmaceutical firms.
Kao Chung-hsien (高宗賢), who is in charge of the health department's legal affairs, said he and his colleagues have closely studied the resolution and concluded that it was meant to serve as a suggestion.
"The department values the advice but cannot put it into practice in light of the real situation," Kao said.
Tsai Feng-lien (蔡豐年), a finance ministry official, said it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the ministry to return the 36 grassroots credit units that have already been incorporated into commercial banks to the farmers' associations they originally belonged to.
Tsai said the units had sustained huge debts and so the Financial Reconstruction Fund could not but help take control of them in 2001 as part of the government's effort to reform the nation's financial sector.
"That cannot be undone, though the government agreed last November to halt reform of other credit units," he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods