With cancer diagnoses rising steadily nationwide, the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) yesterday said that it spent nearly NT$80 billion (US$2.56 billion) on cancer treatment last year, with the majority going to therapies for colorectal cancer.
The agency’s latest statistics showed that last year alone it allocated NT$78.2 billion to cancer treatment, accounting for about 13.3 percent of its total NT$590 billion in expenses for the year.
Colorectal cancer treatment topped the spending list with NT$10.9 billion, followed by lung cancers with NT$10.8 billion, breast cancers with NT$10.3 billion, liver cancers with NT$8.4 billion and oral cancers with NT$6.6 billion, the statistics showed.
Rounding out the top 10 most expensive cancers were leukemia with NT$4 billion, non-Hodgkin lymphomas at NT$3.9 billion, prostate cancers with NT$3.1 billion, stomach cancers with NT$2.5 billion and esophageal cancers, NT$2.3 billion.
“The treatment expenses included the costs of surgeries, examinations, anesthesia, hospital stays and medicines, as well as diagnostic fees, with prescription drug expenses for the 614,415 Taiwanese diagnosed with cancer last year amounting to NT$29.4 billion constituting the largest portion at nearly 30 percent,” agency researcher Chen Shang-pin (陳尚斌) said.
Chen said that the increase in spending on cancer drugs was the most prominent budget increase in the past three years, at 6.9 percent, followed by 5.8 percent growth in the total expenses for cancer treatments and 4.8 percent growth in the number of cancer patients.
Liver cancer drug costs saw the largest increase — 20.4 percent, while those for non-Hodgkin lymphomas and leukemia climbed by 13.7 percent and 11.9 percent respectively, Chen said.
“The significant growth in the cost of medicines could have been because the inclusion of new anticancer drugs into the National Health Insurance program over the past two years,” Chen said.
The NHIA would continue to widen insurance coverage to include more effective and advanced medicines to increase patients’ chances of recovery and survival, while reducing the financial burden of medical treatment for individuals.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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