Responding to widespread criticism that the National Health Insurance (NHI) overhaul has changed course one too many times, Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) yesterday told lawmakers that the latest version will “belong to everyone.”
Yaung made the remark at the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee meeting.
However, faced with questions from reporters regarding details of the new version of the second-generation health plan, Yaung was tight-lipped, saying only that he hoped the plan would gain support from the Executive Yuan and lawmakers.
The second-generation plan has been hailed as a more equal system that would resolve the financial troubles that have long plagued the NHI fund.
Discussed for almost a decade, the reform proposal originally mainly focuses on replacing the current system — which calculates premiums based on an individual’s regular salary — with a premium scheme based on household income.
Under the original proposal, households with similar incomes would pay the same premium regardless of the number of family members.
However, after the original proposal failed to garner a consensus from both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, as well as the Executive Yuan, the department is now working toward a “new and improved” version.
“Even though this [version] is now different from the original [proposal], the health department will do as the [Cabinet] and lawmakers suggest, so now the plan belongs to everyone,” Yaung said.
He declined to say what types of non-salary income — such as professional practice income, interest on deposits, profit from stock dividends and property trading, cash awards and bonuses — would be included in the revenue base on which premiums would be calculated.
He also refused to say if income would be calculated based on an individual’s salary, as is the current system, or the household’s, as has been proposed previously in the second-generation health plan.
However, Yaung said he expects premium rates to be lower than the current 5.17 percent because of an increased revenue base.
Yaung said that the second-generation plan would solve many other problems plaguing the current system, such as the issue of invalid NHI status for those who are unable or unwilling to pay their premiums and a more transparent and streamlined system for differences in drug price and NHI reimbursement.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
RSS