In advance of the presidential and legislative elections set for Jan. 11 next year, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has come up with a series of policy proposals for the upgraded Long-term Care Plan 2.0.
In response, Simon Chang (張善政), convener of the national policy advisory team for Kaohsiung Mayor and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), said on Facebook that the Ministry of Health and Welfare made three attractive long-term care policy proposals in just nine days.
Chang suggested that the DPP government was “throwing money around to buy votes” and “mending a broken net.” Chang’s comments deserve a closer look.
The KMT led the government for from 2008 to 2016, when Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was president. Ma’s administration did not propose its own long-term care policy, but only continued the “10-year long-term care plan” that had been introduced at the end of the previous DPP administration.
Long-term care budgets during those eight years were never in line with those foreseen in the plan. The amount allocated over eight years was less than the approximately NT$30 billion (US$968.6 million) that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration allocated for last year alone.
Furthermore, the DPP government has allocated bigger budgets with each passing year to support long-term care policies.
Although the size of budget allocations does not necessarily indicate whether they can meet the public’s needs, it does show how aware the government is of the policy’s effects on national development.
Chang was vice premier from December 2014 to January 2016 and premier from February to May 2016, when Ma’s presidency came to an end. While campaigning for the January 2016 presidential election, the KMT wanted to “mend the broken net” of long-term care, so it hastily proposed a plan for invigorating long-term care services.
It planned to spend NT$30 billion in three years to make up for its disregard for the development of long-term during almost all of Ma’s eight years in office.
Chang seems to have forgotten that he had a plan to mend the broken long-term care net. Perhaps it is a case of selective amnesia. Regardless, the KMT lost that election, so it never got the chance to “mend the net.”
Every policy has strong and weak points. The weaknesses of the Long-term Care Plan 2.0 include uncertain sources of revenue, shortages of caregivers and care experts, disregard of the role of families and institutions in care, failure to enable communities to deliver better services and so on.
It has been in the run-up to elections that the DPP has proposed long-term care policies and promised to provide the funding needed to overcome policy weaknesses, but at least the party is ready and willing to do something about it.
Voters would also like to see whether the KMT can come up with concrete measures to improve long-term care. Thus far, no proposals have been made.
Long-term care is a policy area in which the two main parties can engage in serious discussions. Hopefully each party can propose its “secret formulas” for long-term care so that the public can see which party is really working for the public good.
If all goes well, their rivalry will boost their will to build a viable long-term care system for Taiwan.
George Yi is an expert on dementia care and a researcher on long-term care policy.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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