Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said yesterday that measures such as raising the health charge on cigarettes and the insurance premiums of the wealthy will be needed next year to reduce the National Health Insurance’s growing deficit.
At a committee hearing in the Legislative Yuan, legislators expressed concern over the health insurance system’s deficit as they reviewed the DOH’s budget.
Acknowledging that the DOH needed to find ways to plug the gap, Yeh said he expected to increase the compulsory “health donation” imposed on each pack of cigarettes to NT$20 (US$0.60) from the current NT$10, and raise the premiums of high-income earners by the end of this year or early next year.
“Preparations are underway, but we will present the plan [to the Legislative Yuan] at an appropriate moment,” Yeh said, adding that he preferred waiting until the domestic economic situation was less tense.
By increasing the so-called health tax, the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) would receive an estimated NT$16 billion to NT$18 billion in added revenues per year, Yeh said.
At present, an NT$11.8 tobacco tax is also levied on each pack of cigarettes, but while most of the health charge goes to the health insurance bureau, revenues from the tobacco tax are allocated to general government expenditure.
Yeh also said he planned to raise premiums for the wealthy while lowering those paid by underprivileged people, but did not provide further details on the income levels at which such adjustments would apply.
The Bureau of National Health Insurance warned yesterday that with the insurance premium rate being maintained at 4.55 percent this year, it would suffer an accumulated deficit of about NT$32.6 billion for the year.
The bureau proposed raising the rate to 5.18 percent in April to keep the deficit from growing, but most legislators opposed the idea.
In addition, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised during his campaign that premiums would not be raised before the country’s economic growth rate increased.
Premiums have only been raised once — from 4.25 percent to 4.55 percent in 2002 — since the system came into effect in 1995.
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