Major national medical associations, including the Taiwan Public Health Association, have said they support a proposal by the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) to fund new cancer medicines through a liquor surcharge.
At the Sustainability Forum for Taiwan Multi-support Cancer Drugs Fund on Tuesday, NHIA Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) proposed imposing alcohol health and welfare surcharges to fund President William Lai’s (賴清德) policy to raise NT$10 billion (US$307.93 million) within three years for cancer drugs, with the aim of reducing cancer deaths by one-third by 2030.
As many as 880,000 people had cancer last year, with treatment expenses totaling NT$139.9 billion and cancer drug expenses of NT$39.4 billion, Shih said.
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
The average increase in cancer medicine expenditure from 2014 to last year was 9.3 percent, he said.
The fund is needed as the growth rate of cancer drug expenditure has far surpassed the National Health Insurance’s (NHI) total budget, while the conditional listings under the budget would compete with other medical services, he said.
The cancer drugs fund is a special revenue fund, which would require financial sources separate from existing government income or national treasury appropriation in accordance with the Fiscal Discipline Act (財政紀律法).
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Civic groups, including the Taiwan Public Health Association, Formosa Association for the Surgery of Trauma, Taiwanese Society of Addiction, Taiwan Alcohol Prevention Association, Taiwan Alcohol Intolerance Education Society, Taiwanese Academy of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Taiwanese Society of Psychiatry, Taiwan Association of Clinical Psychology and Taiwan Against Drunk Driving, said in a recent joint statement that they support the proposal.
Empirical research has shown that imposing an alcohol tax or surcharge can reduce alcohol-related risks, with a more significant beneficial effect for disadvantaged groups, such as teenagers and people of lower socioeconomic status, compared with other demographic groups, the statement said.
The nation’s success in curbing tobacco use could be drawn on to establish the alcohol surcharge, which could also fund the control, intervention or treatment of alcohol abuse, prevention of drunk driving, or other research and policies, as many countries have been doing, it said.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) on Monday said the cancer drug fund would be used mainly on new cancer medicines, with nearly NT$2.43 billion allocated to conditional listings under the NHI’s budget for this year.
By 2026, the fund is expected to reach NT$10 billion, independent of the NHI’s budget and the fund for rare diseases, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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