Pan-green Taipei City councilors yesterday accused Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of soliciting votes by relaxing health insurance subsidy regulations to include more low-income residents aged 65 and above.
Despite opposition from the Taipei City Council, in January the Taipei City Government canceled the health insurance subsidy for senior residents whose annual income was more than NT$990,000 after tax, and also excluded low-income residents aged 65 and above from the subsidy list because of the city government’s financial difficulties.
However, Taipei City’s Department of Social Affairs announced on Wednesday that it would provide subsidies for senior citizens below the income threshold starting on Jan.1.
“We are glad to see that the Hau administration is restoring the subsidy, but Hau should apologize for this policy flip-flop and its effect on the rights of residents,” independent Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) said yesterday at the Taipei City Council.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) and Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) joined Chen in accusing the city government of failing to take care of the elderly from low-income families, and said Hau only agreed to restore the subsidy to raise his support rate and solicit more votes in next year’s mayoral election.
“Mayor Hau refused to restore the subsidy two months ago and we don’t know if he changed his mind because he finally accepted our advice or because the subsidy would help him gain more votes,” Lee said.
Hau declined to comment on the accusations and said the city government decided to provide subsidies to more senior citizens because the slow economy had made it more difficult for people to make ends meet.
“The city government decided to respect the council’s decision, and it is our obligation to take care of all the people that we should take care of,” he said.
Cheng Wen-hui (鄭文惠), a division chief at the department, said the department would increase its budget by NT$100 million (US$3 million) next year in accordance with the policy change, adding that more than 10,000 senior residents would benefit with a monthly subsidy of up to NT$659.
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:
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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