Opening long-term care providers to investment from insurance companies could lead to an extreme “marketization” of the sector, making regulation difficult and compromising patient interests, Green Party-Social Democratic Party (SDP) Alliance legislative candidates said yesterday.
“We’re not entirely opposed to ‘for-profits,’ but the government should be responsible and establish basic long-term care infrastructure before we talk about opening the sector,” alliance candidate Lu Hsin-chieh (呂欣潔) said.
Proposed amendments to the Insurance Act (保險法) under review in the Legislative Yuan would allow life insurance companies to invest in the long-term care firms for the first time, appointing up to one-third of the firms’ board members.
If the amendments pass, the amount of capitol controlled by insurance firms would enable them to transform a long-term care sector, Lu said, adding the sector’s current small, independent care operators would likely be acquired or pushed out of business by insurance company competition.
Even though facilities would likely expand, most of the growth would be focused on more profitable “higher-end” services, even as the needs of disadvantaged groups remain unmet, she said.
She said the government was attempting to shift responsibility for establishing long-term care facilities to the private sector, comparing the produced changes to encouraging taxis and luxury buses in the absence of public transportation.
Allowing life insurance companies to invest in the sector also raised the possibility of future conflicts of interest, which could include insurance companies allowing clients to receive long-term care only from company-owned facilities, Lu said, dismissing government claims that it could enforce regulations forbidding firms from “locking in” clients or providing sub-par care.
“Given the current state of affairs, within the next 10 or 20 years, we could easily have as many as 1.2 million disabled elderly — how many personnel will you need [to enforce regulations]?” she said.
She also dismissed government claims that regulations would bar insurance firms from gaining control of long-term care facilities by limiting their board appointments to one-third of board members.
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