Taipei Deputy Mayor Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川) yesterday denied he has shifted his viewpoints about the payment of health insurance subsidies. His denial came after he served as the right-hand man of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who refused to pay about NT$10.7 billion in health insurance subsidies to the Bureau of National Health In-surance (BNHI) since 1999.
Yeh, who served as the first president of the BNHI in 1995 and was credited with the success of the National Health Insurance system, yesterday held a news conference to rebut reporting by a local newspaper that Yeh's stance on the health insurance subsidies issue was different from that of Ma. Yeh vowed that he held the same viewpoint as the city government.
In the report, Yeh said that it was legitimate for the central government to ask local governments to cover the health insurance subsidies of people who worked in their cities. This was in opposition to Ma, who claimed that the local government has no obligation to pay extra bills for people who are registered Taipei residents.
In terms of the disputes over the health insurance debts, Ma and other city government officials have argued that it was unfair to expect the city to pay the bills of 3.58 million people who work in Taipei, when only 2.63 million of them live there. The city government held several public meetings to put this argument to Taipei residents.
The contention about the debts has been submitted to the Taipei High Administrative Court.
Yeh yesterday said it was true that it was legitimate for the central government to ask the Taipei City Government to pay the health insurance fees of people who worked in Taipei City, yet he thought it was "unreasonable."
He also stressed that he did not "change his mind after changing his office" in terms of the large amount of debts that the city government owed the BNHI.
"I never varied my opinions about the payment of the health insurance subsidies. I've been saying that the central government should pay the bills for the policy that it made," Yeh said
"The current regulation is unreasonable and it needs to be revised," he said.
In fact, after taking over the office of deputy mayor, Yeh said that his priority was to solve the disputes over the health insurance subsidies on behalf of the city government.
Yeh yesterday said that the dispute over how much money the city government had to pay has became a judicial question that is waiting to be settled and he had no comment on this aspect.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Many Japanese couples are coming to Taiwan to obtain donated sperm or eggs for fertility treatment due to conservatism in their home country, Taiwan’s high standards and low costs, doctors said. One in every six couples in Japan is receiving infertility treatment, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare data show. About 70,000 children are born in Japan every year through in vitro fertilization (IVF), or about one in every 11 children born. Few people accept donated reproductive cells in Japan due to a lack of clear regulations, leaving treatment in a “gray zone,” Taichung Nuwa Fertility Center medical director Wang Huai-ling (王懷麟)
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
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