The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday made three demands for healthcare, asking the government apologize to the people, to revise “unfair” clauses in the National Health Insurance Act (全民健康保險法) and for premium calculations to be based on total household income.
“The initial design of the premium calculation was based on household income, before several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators overturned the mechanism overnight,” DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) told a press conference.
“Even former Department of Health minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) admitted in a press conference the other day that he disagreed with the legislation passed last year,” Pan said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“The DPP caucus does not rule out a proposal to amend the law again,” he said.
The controversial supplementary premium was added to the legislation simply for the purposes of increasing the premium base, but the unfairness of the premium calculation is obvious, DPP Legislator Wu Yi-chen (吳宜臻) said.
“Five types of income have been picked to be charged with the supplementary premium, but capital gains and overseas income were not included,” she said.
Under the current calculation, blue-collar workers would have to pay a bigger supplementary premium than doctors and lawyers, Wu said, adding that bonuses of more than NT$2,000 would be charged, but not non-cash awards worth the same amount.
“Those who are familiar with accounting and the premium calculation would be able to evade the supplementary premium. At the same time, ordinary people and the underprivileged would not be able to do anything about it,” she said.
DPP Legislator Tsai Chih-chang (蔡其昌) described the second-generation National Health Insurance (NHI) program as a “patchwork program” with a lack of “overall planning.”
Yaung acknowledged that he was forced into accepting the previous amendment and the Department of Health is reportedly taking steps to formulate a third-generation NHI program based on household income, DPP Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said.
“If that is the case, the department might as well abandon the controversial second-generation program and work on a fairer system,” Hsu said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
Singapore is to allow imports of Taiwanese raw pork for the first time in 15 years, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The Singapore Food Agency has approved imports of fresh pork produced by New Taipei City-based Cha I Shan Foods, which had obtained a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification from the ministry to export to Singapore, it said. The ministry said it had hoped Singapore would permit Taiwanese fresh pork imports in addition to processed pork products. Singapore agreed to accept Taiwanese fresh pork after completing a document review and a virtual tour of Cha I Shan Foods’ packing
‘FACT-BASED’: There is no ban, and 2 million Taiwanese have traveled to China this year, which is more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week. The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait. The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island. The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said the city “does not tolerate violence” after the Taipei City Council reported death threats over a planned screening today of a documentary on alleged forced organ harvesting in China. The council’s report follows a flurry of similar threats targeting theaters and institutions screening the documentary, titled State Organs, which accuses Chinese officials of harvesting organs from incarcerated dissidents and Falun Gong members. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors who planned to screen the film told a news conference earlier yesterday that the organizers of the screening had received a threat of a knife attack signed
RSS