The Department of Health (DOH) and the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) yesterday said the details of a proposal to raise National Health Insurance premiums had yet to be finalized.
“I have offered my recommendation to the president but that is it,” DOH Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) said.
Yaung was responding to a yesterday’s story in the Chinese-language United Daily News that said Yaung had “strongly recommended” to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) that National Health Insurance premiums be raised from 4.55 percent to 5.13 percent.
“The story was inaccurate. I told the president that we need to raise premiums, but I did not present any specific figures or plans,” Yaung said.
SPECIFIC PLAN
Yaung’s remarks were supported by BNHI President Cheng Shou-hsia (鄭守夏), who said that he had not heard of any specific plan about increases from the DOH or the Cabinet.
Cheng said the timing for a raise in premiums had not yet been decided and that the scope of the adjustment had not been set.
At the moment, he said, the BNHI is focused on cutting expenses. In addition to promoting integrated healthcare programs, it plans to launch a project at the start of next year in which grassroots pharmacists will make house calls to determine whether patients are visiting more than one doctor and obtaining multiple prescriptions for the same medication.
COUNSELING SERVICES
BNHI staff and social workers will also be assigned to offer counseling services for those who have seen doctors more than 100 times a year, Cheng said.
He said the country’s universal health insurance system would be bankrupt in 10 years if the relatively low premiums remained unchanged.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday expressed opposition to the proposed premium hike.
KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) told a press conference that the legislature might not accept the BNHI’s plan to increase the premium.
Lin said the caucus would invite the bureau to discuss how to resolve the bureau’s financial problems.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG AND CNA
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