The Legislative Yuan yesterday decided not to review a bill on the introduction of a second-generation National Health Insurance (NHI) program until next week.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who is also director-general of the party’s Policy Committee, said the legislature took a break yesterday because it had been busy for the previous four days.
The Legislative Yuan is currently holding a two-week provisional session, which began on Tuesday and runs until Aug. 30, to deal with a number of priority bills. Items that cleared the legislative floor earlier in the week include the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and several bills regarding the admission of Chinese students to Taiwan’s universities and colleges.
The proposed amendment to the National Health Insurance Act (全民健康保險法) is the only item on Thursday’s agenda not to have been reviewed.
The bill mainly involves a new scheme for calculating premiums based on total household income, rather than the existing system, which considers an individual’s salary and wage. The change is considered essential to saving the cash-strapped program.
However, lawmakers were not optimistic about the bill’s passage during the special session because of the many controversies involved.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) said the legislature should not hurry the bill through given that there are 26 clauses in the bill that are highly disputable.
KMT Legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) said resolving the NHI system’s structural problems is more important than changing the premium calculation method.
One urgent issue is how to curb excessive medical procedures, which generate lucrative profits for medical institutions and lead to expanding NHI expenditure, Yang said.
She also urged the Department of Health to calculate the cost of keeping the insurance system operating.
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said that if the bill fails to clear the legislature in the provisional session, he hopes it can be listed as a priority item for the next regular legislative session due to begin next month.
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