Plans to increase National Health Insurance (NHI) premiums would shortchange foreign students, rights advocates said yesterday, as the Legislative Yuan prepares to vote on the increase as part of plans to incorporate Chinese students for the first time.
“Foreign students are already being treated as a business opportunity in the education sector and now the government is extending this mentality to healthcare,” Alliance Against the Commercialization of Education member Hsieh Yi-hung (謝毅弘) said.
Foreign students are required to pay double the tuition of Taiwanese students at public universities, with no limits on what private universities can charge, he said.
“Foreign students are already fundamentally contributors to the National Health Insurance system — not a burden, but the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] is using unacceptable excuses to increase their burden,” he added.
The Legislative Yuan is scheduled to vote today on a proposal to allow Chinese students to join the system, with draft legislation simultaneously raising monthly premiums for both Chinese and other foreign students to NT$1,249.
Chinese are currently excluded from the system, while other foreign students are charged a discounted NT$749 per month, with the government paying 40 percent of the full monthly premium of NT$1,249 in a category that includes the unemployed.
Ministry of Health and Welfare data show that foreign students are net contributors to the National Health Insurance program even at discounted rates, citing statements by Department of Social Isurance Director Shang Tung-fu (商東福) when the new policy was announced in October last year.
At the time, Shang was quoted by the Chinese-language United Daily News as saying that international students made a net contribution of more than NT$200 million to the insurance program relative to the cost of the services they use.
“Existing premiums are already unreasonable, because foreign students are being required to pay premiums equal to workers with monthly salaries of more than NT$50,000, even though they do not have any income,” Hsieh said, adding that the proposed hike would make foreign student premiums equivalent to workers with monthly salaries of NT$87,600.
Because students are young and healthy, it is unreasonable to ask them to pay the same amount as others in their category, Taiwan Nurses Union president Jane Lu (盧孳艷) said, while also criticizing the high premium level for the unemployed as unfair.
“The reality is that premiums in this category are already unfair,” she said, blaming the premium controversy on the National Health Insurance categorization system.
“There is always controversy as soon you run into categorization issues, because it is difficult to draw hard and fast lines,” she said, calling for unitary national premiums.
The complex system has allowed the DPP to “manipulate” how foreign students’ discounted rates are viewed, turning them into a “target,” she said.
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