Before an election, candidates always make promises to attract voters’ attention. The most common one is offering better welfare programs, such as health insurance. New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, has proposed full healthcare subsidies for people aged 65 or older, as well as indigenous people aged 55 to 64.
“Free healthcare for every senior, all of them,” Hou said at the time.
If a nation is fiscally stable and does not have a budget deficit, I would support any kind of social welfare policy. What worries me is when candidates make promises, do they ever think of where they would get the money to finance it? Could this policy go on for years? Would it be a half-baked policy implemented with a bang, only to fade with a whimper?
The most telling example is the one advocating “free textbooks.” During previous elections, many mayoral and county commissioner candidates proposed providing free textbooks. After they were elected, they did keep their promises. Fully funded by the local governments, all elementary and junior-high schools provided textbooks for free.
It should have been a wonderful thing for all, but the happiness did not last long. After a few years, textbooks were no longer free due to financial reasons. Those local governments were mocked as just trying too hard to impress. They also had to bear the consequences for years to come.
Compared with free textbooks, “free healthcare for all seniors” is a much bigger issue that needs to be carefully thought out. For one, Taiwan is an aging society, with people aged 65 or older comprising 14 percent of the population.
By 2025, when Taiwan is expected to become a super-aged society, the percentage is likely to reach 20; in other words, one out of five people would be 65 or older. Moreover, if the birthrate is lower than the mortality rate, the problems that an aging society must confront would be even more serious.
As the population of seniors continues to grow, the government would have to provide more and funds and resources to finance healthcare. Has the candidate promising “free healthcare for all seniors” thought this through?
It has become increasingly difficult for the government to make ends meet to support the National Health Insurance (NHI) system. The NHI supplementary premium policy was implemented to address this problem, and the premium has been raised several times.
Even with such careful planning, it is still hard to keep finances stable. If the government pushes forward with free healthcare for all citizens 65 or older without careful evaluation, the budget deficit would worsen and the system might go belly-up.
Also, from a relativist viewpoint, if seniors do not have to pay healthcare fees, others would have to pay more. This is not a fair arrangement and would make things harder for other age categories. Those advocating free healthcare must consider all these aspects carefully.
As a Taiwanese proverb says, an outsider would not understand the difficulty of doing the actual job; also, what has been said does not necessarily lead to a welcome result.
Those lacking experience in government do not know how difficult it is to run a government and make things work. Instead of making promises to voters, candidates should be more pragmatic and propose realistic policies that suit the country and which discerning voters can support.
Hu Yen
Taipei
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