Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday accused the government of “belittling” and “insulting” the legislature over the controversial second--generation healthcare reform plan, which has encountered a series of problems in recent weeks.
Repeating remarks made on Thursday, the DPP caucus called for Premier Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) resignation after speculation that the government, which failed to see the plan pass a legislative review last week, was now moving toward the adoption of a watered-down version of the bill.
“Revision after revision after revision ... that’s about all we have seen so far on this issue,” DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The healthcare reform bill, which is seen as an indispensable remedy for the mounting debts associated with the National Health Insurance Program, failed in part over fears of substantial healthcare premium increases.
Opinion polls have shown that the vast majority of Taiwanese did not understand the content of the proposed reforms, which would have calculated premiums on household rather than individual income. A major point of contention was the inclusion of “assumed” income levels for the unemployed.
DPP lawmakers have shied away from accusing their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts and instead channeled their anger at the Executive Yuan, which they said kept forcing numerous revisions and tweaks on the proposal.
“Wu should be asking himself why his own policies haven’t been able to earn the trust of the people — or even that of lawmakers from his own party,” Pan said. “Instead, he thinks the blame lies with everyone but himself.”
Despite overt DPP support for second-generation healthcare reforms, Pan said the government had yet to let the DPP in on the content or timing of the revised proposal.
Until DPP lawmakers see the new revision, “we will not act as a rubber stamp,” Pan said.
Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) reported to the Executive Yuan yesterday, where he presented a modified version of the proposal and briefed KMT legislators in the afternoon.
Although a consensus appeared to have been reached within the party, some KMT legislators said Yaung would have to provide clarifications on a number of provisions.
Meanwhile, after a meeting with DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), senior DPP officials said the party would introduce its own proposal in the coming days.
DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said the party believed the current method used for calculating healthcare premiums was unfair and disproportionate to the salaried class.
Sources at the party said the DPP proposal would likely include higher premiums on individuals who obtain their income through secondary sources, including stock and real estate gains.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
PEACE AT LAST? UN experts had warned of threats and attacks ahead of the voting, but after a turbulent period, Bangladesh has seemingly reacted to the result with calm The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) yesterday celebrated a landslide victory in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, with party leader Tarique Rahman to become prime minister. Bangladesh Election Commission figures showed that the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, compared with 77 for the Islamist-led Jamaat-e-Islami alliance. The US embassy congratulated Rahman and the BNP for a “historic victory,” while India praised Rahman’s “decisive win” in a significant step after recent rocky relations with Bangladesh. China and Pakistan, which grew closer to Bangladesh since the uprising and the souring of ties with India, where ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina
FAST-TRACK: The deal is to be sent to the legislature, but time is of the essence, as Trump had raised tariffs on Seoul when it failed to quickly ratify a similar pact Taiwan and the US on Thursday signed a trade agreement that caps US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and provides preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural exports, including cars, and beef and pork products. The Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade confirms a 15 percent US tariff for Taiwanese goods, and grants Taiwanese semiconductors and related products the most-favorable-treatment under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the Executive Yuan said. In addition, 2,072 items — representing nearly 20 percent of Taiwan’s total exports to the US — would be exempt from additional tariffs and be subject only to
The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) yesterday released the first images from its Formosat-8A satellite, featuring high-resolution views of Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), Tainan’s Anping District (安平), Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor (興達港), Japan’s National Stadium in Tokyo and Barcelona airport. Formosat-8A, named the “Chi Po-lin Satellite” after the late Taiwanese documentary filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), was launched on Nov. 29 last year. It is designed to capture images at a 1m resolution, which can be sharpened to 0.7m after processing, surpassing the capabilities of its predecessor, Formosat-5, the agency said. It is the first of TASA’s eight-satellite Formosat-8 constellation to be sent into orbit and
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday approved a special pardon exempting a woman in her 80s convicted of killing her disabled son from imprisonment. After carefully reviewing the case, Lai pardoned Lin Liu Lung-tzu (林劉龍子) from the prison sentence while acknowledging her conviction, citing the extreme circumstances she faced, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. Under Article 3 of the Amnesty Act (赦免法), the two kinds of pardons are exempting an offender from the execution of a punishment or declaring the punishment to be invalid. Kuo said Lin Liu had spent more than 50 years caring for her son, before
RSS