The nation’s new health chief said yesterday he would prioritize collecting payments of National Health Insurance (NHI) debts owed by local governments.
Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良), who assumed the post of minister of the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday, said that among the 18 local governments that owed the Bureau of National Health Insurance a total of NT$60.3 billion (US$1.8 billion) in debt, Taipei City Government topped the list with NT$34.7 billion.
Describing the city government’s debt as the bureau’s biggest problem, Yaung said: “Taipei City Government must pay its debt or the National Health Insurance’s finances will collapse sooner or later.”
Kaohsiung City Government came in second with NT$17.8 billion in debt, while Taipei County Government ranked third with NT$4.3 billion.
Yaung said another priority would be adjusting the national health insurance premiums.
“There is room for adjustment of health insurance premiums, with higher-income individuals paying higher premiums and the poor paying less,” he said.
Yaung made the remarks after the Control Yuan censured the DOH and the bureau the previous day for failing to promptly increase health insurance premiums when the conditions were appropriate for an adjustment.
For years, the BNHI has been operating in the red, with its accumulated budget deficit already exceeding NT$33.1 billion (US$1 billion). The Control Yuan said it would not rule out impeaching the new health minister if the DOH fails to address the problem within the allotted time.
Yaung said he would ask the bureau next week to come up with a premium adjustment proposal and complementary measures.
The insurance premium should be based on individuals’ overall income, he said.
“The problem lies in that fact that rich people pay too little, while the poor are overloaded, “ Yaung said.
Yaung took over the post from Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), who resigned on Monday to join the Chinese Nationalist Party’s primary for Hualien County commissioner.
Yeh’s request was approved by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) the same day, but drew criticism from lawmakers across partylines who panned him for quitting at a time when the A(H1N1) flu was spreading across the country.
Liu praised Yeh yesterday for his work as health minister and said the administration would continue to seek his advice and assistance in fighting the flu.
Liu was quoted by Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) as saying at a press conference following the weekly Cabinet meeting that Yeh had “wholeheartedly devoted his efforts” to his job as health minister.
“Although Yeh resigned to pursue a new stage in his career, the government still needs Yeh’s experience to combat epidemics in the future,” Su quoted Liu as saying.
Su said the Executive Yuan and the DOH had agreed to set up an anti-epidemic counseling panel, and the premier had asked the DOH to closely monitor the safety of vaccinations.
During the Cabinet meeting, Liu said the government was confident it could effectively handle a disease outbreak and minimize its impact on society.
Thanks to the efforts made by Yeh and other experts to curb its spread, Liu said Taiwan has built one of the world’s most comprehensive anti-epidemic networks.
Yeh briefed the Cabinet yesterday on the DOH’s preparations against the spread of A(H1N1), saying that Adimmune Corp, Taiwan’s only producer of vaccine for swine flu, would produce 4 million doses in November.
In response to grave public concern about the safety of the company’s products, Yeh gave his assurance that DOH personnel would take part in the vaccine’s entire manufacturing and quality control process.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater