Recently passed amendments to the fiscal planning law would cause public health and social welfare funds to shrink, including childcare subsidies and funding for cancer screenings and medication, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said today.
Opposition parties collectively pushed amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) through the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week.
The new legislation would take effect three days after President William Lai (賴清德) announces it, Cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said yesterday.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Next year’s overall government budget would be seriously affected by the amendments and may need to be reallocated, she said.
The central government needs to allocate NT$375.3 billion (US$11.47 billion) to local governments, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
As a result, funding for the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Ministry of National Defense may be reduced by 28 percent, it said.
The new legislation would affect the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s efforts to strengthen cancer prevention and expand publicly funded cancer screenings, the minister said in an interview prior to a press conference about expanding cancer screenings next year.
It would also affect funding for cancer treatments, research and drugs, he said.
Efforts aimed at countering the declining birth rate including childcare subsidies for children aged zero to two, various childcare services and subsidies for assisted reproduction treatments would all be impacted, Chiu said.
Funding for the social safety net, which has been progressively expanding, would also be impacted, he said.
Health, welfare and healthcare policies have nationwide significance and cannot be determined solely based on local preferences, Chiu said.
“We place great emphasis on overall inclusiveness, ensuring that all residents in Taiwan can have equal access to healthcare regardless of which county or city they live in,” the minister said.
This requires the central government to have sufficient resources to improve health care, social welfare and medical services, and create better working conditions for medical and healthcare professionals, he said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
RSS