Five medical associations yesterday slammed a proposed amendment to the Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法) that would exempt people older than 65 in a low tax bracket from paying National Health Insurance (NHI) premiums.
The Legislative Yuan is expected to hold a vote soon to pass a third reading of amendments to the act, which would allow elderly people in the tax bracket below 20 percent to receive subsidies from the central government.
The proposed amendment would exacerbate generational inequality, and the increased financial strain could affect the future of the NHI scheme, five major medical associations said in a joint statement.
Photo: CNA
The five associations are the Taiwan Hospital Association, the Taiwan Medical Association, the Taiwan Union of Nurses Association, the Taiwan Nongovernmental Hospitals and Clinics Association and the Taiwan College of Healthcare Executive.
Between last year and the presidential election in January, presidential candidates and legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party have pushed the proposal.
However, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has maintained that it would cause a financial burden, leading to generational inequality.
Up to 70 percent of the NHI’s income is funded by people under 65, so exempting seniors from insurance premiums would burden the working population, they said, requesting that the proposal immediately be shelved.
The National Development Council estimates that Taiwan is to become a “super-aged” society next year, meaning that 20 percent of the population is to be 65 or older.
Medical costs for people older than 65 far exceed all other age groups. It is estimated that by 2070, the 15-to-64-year-old working-age population would decrease by 9.2 million, while people older than 65 would increase by 2.48 million, the associations said.
The NHI system was founded on the core principle of equitable risk-sharing, with all citizens contributing their fair share to receive healthcare. However, as elderly people require more medical attention and resources, the proposal would affect those contributing to the system. Insurance premiums should instead be calculated based on ability and fairness, they said.
If the central government were to provide NT$35 billion (US$1.07 billion) of subsidies, funds could be diverted from public services and welfare for other vulnerable groups including children, women and the disabled, impacting societal well-being, the associations said.
Young people graduating today might not earn as much as previous generations, so the proposed amendment would create generational injustices and infringe on the spirit of “equal burden, equal gain” of the health insurance system, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.
Moreover, next year’s NHI spending is to surpass NT$900 billion, an overall growth rate of between 3.5 and 5.5 percent, he added.
The proposal would also allow those older than 80 to apply for foreign caregivers without requiring a Barthel Index assessment, which measures a person’s ability to complete activities of daily living and mobility.
TECH SECTOR: Nvidia Corp also announced its intent to build an overseas headquarters in Taiwan, with Taipei and New Taipei City each attempting to woo the US chipmaker The US-based Super Micro Computer Inc and Taiwan’s Guo Rui on Wednesday announced a joint venture to build a computation center powered only by renewable energy. After meeting with Supermicro founder Charles Liang (梁見後) and Guo Rui chairman Lin Po-wen (林博文), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) instructed a cross-ministry panel to be established to help promote the government’s green energy policies and facilitate efforts to obtain land for the generation of green power, Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said. Cho thanked Liang for his company’s support of the government’s 2019 Action Plan for Welcoming Overseas Taiwanese Businesses to Return to Invest in
The unification of China and Taiwan is “non-negotiable,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) said yesterday in response to an article by a Chinese academic suggesting that Beijing would not set a timetable for the annexation of Taiwan in the next four years. Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published last week in Foreign Affairs that China’s focus for the next four years would be revitalizing the economy, not preparing a timetable to invade Taiwan. The TAO said that was only the personal opinion of an academic. The Chinese Communist Party has since 1949 committed
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
China is likely to focus on its economy over the next four years and not set a timetable for attempting to annex Taiwan, a researcher at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday. In the article titled “Why China isn’t scared of Trump: US-Chinese tensions may rise, but his isolationism will help Beijing,” Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote that the US and China are unlikely to go to war over Taiwan in the next four years under US president-elect Donald Trump. While economic and military tensions between the US and China would
RSS