Despite the government mapping out a number of solutions to bolster the ailing National Health Insurance (NHI) system that would avoid raising insurance rates, critics say the financial crisis besetting the system remains undiminished.
With bankruptcy for the NHI looming, the Department of Health proposed "tiny fare increases in multiple areas" last month to balance an estimated NT$12.8 billion (US$414.5 million) deficit for this year. The scheme includes an extra NT$11 billion injection from the government, raising the indexed salary ceiling from NT$87,600 to NT$131,700, and increasing the proportion of the assessed salary from 82.42 to 87.04 percent for the nation's military, civil and teaching personnel.
The plan also includes proposals that require revisions to the law, such as a NT$10 health tax levied on each pack of cigarettes, an air-pollution tax, and making people responsible for injuries pay medical fees.
The Bureau of National Health Insurance has also decided to make patients pay more for their visit to hospitals, a plan that the Executive Yuan will implement in October to tap into an estimated NT$6.39 billion in extra revenue.
To attract public support, the Bureau of National Health Insurance has promised that most people will be free from premium hikes for the next three years if all the measures are enforced.
Medical professionals, however, say that the policy will take too long to have an effect and will not save the NHI from its crisis.
"A slow remedy cannot meet an urgent need. Among the proposed solutions, very few immediately provide the money the NHI system needs," said Wu Shuh-min (
Wu said the bureau's funding reserves will be used up this month, whereas the proposed measures would only bring in about NT$3.5 billion by next month at the earliest.
Of the strategies floated, only two -- raising the indexed salary ceiling and increasing the percentage of assessed income for public servants -- will put money in the bureau's pocket in a short period.
"The fate of some of the drafts, such as the NT$11 billion budget and those that require legal revision, is far from certain. The health authority still needs time to lobby legislators and wait for government agencies to process the annual budget. We don't see a timely solution in the government's policy," said Chen Yong-shing (陳永興), superintendent of Kaohsiung Municipal United Hospital.
The policy of minor fare hikes, Chang said, was merely a makeshift strategy devised by a government that does not dare to publicly explain the NHI's financial dilemma and thus risk ruffling the public's feathers.
"The government cannot even ensure that the policy will be enforced within three months to ease the NHI's financial difficulties this year. How can they promise that insurance rates will remain the same for the next three years? It is a false promise that the government has used to pamper potential voters," Chang said.
In a similar vein, former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) berated the Cabinet for passing on the NHI's financial woes to the next administration.
"It's clear that the government doesn't have the guts to tackle the NHI within its three-year tenure. The key problem is that the NHI's revenue is failing to match its ever-growing expenditure. Yet neither Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) nor the new director-general of the Department of Health, Hou Sheng-mou (侯勝茂), have got to the heart of the problem," said Sheng, one of the most vocal critics of the NHI.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires