The KMT and the Consumers' Foundation (
The Department of Health (DOH) has said it is contemplating raising the ceiling of medical expenses people would pay for themselves.
DOH Director-General Lee Ming-liang (李明亮) said the proposed hike is necessary to keep the debt-ridden Bureau of National Health Insurance viable. Lee also said that such an adjustment would encourage people with minor illnesses to seek treatment at smaller clinics -- whose fees would not be changed -- rather than hospitals.
Under the proposed reform, patients would have to shoulder up to NT$1,500 of the cost for an out-patient visit to a university hospital.
Such visits now cost a maximum of NT$150, in addition to a the individual registration fees charged by medical institutions.
During a news conference yesterday, KMT legislative whip Lin Yi-shih (
Lin noted that the legislature recently amended the health law -- in a bid to ease the Bureau of National Health Insurance's financial woes -- to allow to charge higher premiums.
That revision, Lin said, is expected to add NT$11 billion to the bureau's annual revenues.
"The health department would be cheating the public if it intends to raise fees again within such a short period of time," Lin said.
KMT Legislator Chang Tsai-mei (
"It is reckless for the authorities to raise the fees 10 times before trying less radical measures to rein in medical waste," Chang said.
The Consumers' Foundation (
The foundation said the fee is related to people's welfare and rights and so any adjustment of policy has to be monitored by public opinion. It says the government shouldn't move ahead with such a decision on its own, without winning legislative backing.
The foundation said that the insurance bureau should demand Taipei City and Kaohsiung City pay off their combined NT$30 billion debt to the insurance bureau before it does anything else.
The foundation says a price hike would seriously affect nearly 1.2 million people who suffer from chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetics and asthma.
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