A report circulating on the Internet that foreigners can come to Taiwan for National Health Insurance-covered (NHI) HIV/AIDS treatment after living in the nation for two years is not true, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
The report said that Taiwan would indiscriminately allow foreigners who join the NHI to receive government-covered HIV/AIDS treatment. It said that would mean the government would be spending between NT$162,000 and NT$300,000 on each patient, creating an extra burden on the insurance system, the report said.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said the report is not true, as there are conditions that foreigners must meet before they can receive HIV/AIDS treatment covered by the NHI system.
These include having a legal permit to stay in Taiwan, having joined the NHI after staying in Taiwan for six months, having a hospital-reported case of HIV/AIDS and having a medical record of self-paid HIV/AIDS treatment for two years, which costs about NT$400,000, he said.
Lo said these requirements might be even more difficult to meet than other diseases, and that instead of having to wait for two years and paying about NT$400,000, it might be cheaper for them to seek treatment in other countries.
For example, the UK and Japan do not have a required waiting period for foreigners to receive HIV/AIDS treatment covered by national health insurance, and in Thailand, generic drugs for treating HIV/AIDS are about NT$1,000 per month, much cheaper than the prices in Taiwan, he said.
The CDC said foreigners that meet the required conditions will receive government-covered HIV/AIDS treatment.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS