The Ministry of Justice yesterday said that although all prisoners are to join the National Health Insurance (NHI) program next year, it has not found hospitals willing to serve the inmates of seven prisons and detention centers in northern Taiwan.
Agency of Corrections director Wu Sen-chang (吳憲璋) told the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee that while the second-generation NHI program — which will also cover all prisoners —is scheduled to be implemented next year, the ministry had not found hospitals willing to provide beds for Taipei Prison, the Taipei Detention Center, the Taipei Women’s Detention Center, Taoyuan Prison, Taoyuan Women’s Prison, and the Taipei and Taoyuan juvenile detention houses.
Wu said that if the ministry failed to find hospitals willing to take on prisoners, it would ask the Department of Health to assign hospitals to the penitentiary institutions.
Wu added that some hospitals might be hesitant because of the controversies surrounding jailed former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) medical treatment in Taipei Prison and outside hospitals.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hui-mei (王惠美) said that as unemployed people, the disadvantaged and victims of crimes pay their own NHI fees, it was unreasonable to ask taxpayers to pay the health insurance fees of prisoners.
Instead, the prisoners’ insurance bill should be paid with a fund inmates can contribute to from what they earn working in prison factories, he said.
Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) agreed that it was a good idea. The ministry said it did not support the idea of taxpayers footing prisoners’ insurance bills, but that the law had been passed by the legislature.
Tseng said the ministry would review the policy after it takes effect in one year and that a prisoners’ fund was its preferred policy for financing inmates’ health care.
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
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An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition