The Blue and White Legislators recently forced the third reading to pass the 22nd Amendment to the "Elderly Welfare Act", which actually deleted legal sources of subsidies related to disadvantaged elders, which will have an impact on my country's nearly 140,000 disadvantaged elders. Lai Zhongqiang, the convener of the United Economic Democracy think tank, was interviewed by this newspaper today and criticized Blue and White. They made political amendments in the name of the welfare of the elderly and actually deleted the medical subsidies that are not covered by health insurance subsidies for "low- and middle-income elderly people". Is this a deliberate bad thing? Or deleted by mistake? Fu Kunqi, the general convenor of the Kuomintang League, and Huang Guochang, the chairman of the Kuomintang Party, should come out to apologize to the public.
The Social Welfare Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare pointed out that Article 22 of the current "Elderly Welfare Act" applies to about 140,000 people. The article requires local governments to provide disadvantaged elders with subsidies related to "partially borne expenses" and "expenses other than health insurance benefits". Among them, "expenses other than health insurance benefits" include subsidies for dentures, as well as artificial lenses for cataract surgery, heart stents for myocardial infarction, etc., which require differential expenses. If the local government decides not to continue providing subsidies, the intraocular lenses used in cataract surgeries may be affected.
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Lai Zhongqiang pointed out that this time Blue and White made political amendments in the name of the welfare of the elderly. However, the amendment actually deleted the two parts of the rights of "low- and middle-income elderly people" that need to be protected the most, namely "health insurance partial burden subsidy" and "non-health insurance covered medical subsidies."
Lai Zhongqiang mentioned that the previous defense of the People's Party and the Kuomintang was that although it was deleted from the "Elderly Welfare Law", the "Social Assistance Law" and the "Health Insurance Law" still have provisions for medical subsidies for low- and middle-income households. This argument is actually avoiding the important and minimizing the minor. To put it simply, the "Social Assistance Law" and the "Health Insurance Law" deal with "low-income households" and "low- and middle-income households", but do not deal with "low- and middle-income elderly people."
Lai Zhongqiang explained that low-income households refer to those whose average income is less than 1 times the basic living standard, and low- and middle-income households refer to less than 1.5 times. The "Elderly Welfare Act" sub-law also stipulates "Living Allowance for Low- and Middle-income Elderly People", which includes "low- and middle-income elderly people", that is, those whose income is less than 2.5 times the basic living standard.
Lai Zhongqiang said that, therefore, from the perspective of coverage, there is at least a group of people whose income is between 1.5 times and 2.5 times the basic living standard. They are not within the definition of low- and middle-income households in the Social Assistance Law, but are protected by the Elderly Welfare Law who cannot afford medical expenses. After the Blue and White amendments to the Elderly Welfare Law, this group is a disadvantaged group that cannot be covered by the National Health Insurance Law and the Social Assistance Law.
Lai Zhongqiang questioned, why did you delete it? Why should we delete "Partial Health Insurance Subsidy" and "Medical Subsidy Not Covered by Health Insurance" for low- and middle-income elderly people? There is absolutely no reason to delete it. Did Lan Bai do something bad intentionally, or did he delete it by mistake? If it was deleted by mistake, Fu Kunqi and Huang Guochang should apologize first instead of blaming the person who discovered the problem.
Lai Zhongqiang further said that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has publicly stated that it is clarifying the scope of the impact. It can also be seen from this incident that the Kuomintang is actually based on electoral considerations, constantly emptying the central government's finances, and passing the responsibility that originally was the burden of local governments to the central government. It is not really about protecting the welfare of the elderly.
Lai Zhongqiang criticized that if you really wanted to protect the welfare of the elderly, you would not have deleted this by mistake or deliberately. I would like to ask Fu Kunqi and Huang Guochang, did you delete it by mistake? If I deleted it by mistake, shouldn't I apologize? If it was deleted on purpose, would you still be able to stay in politics?
Regarding concerns about the legality and political responsibility of the Legislative Yuan's legislative amendment process, Lai Zhongqiang criticized that the Legislative Yuan should have no shame in sending such a bill to the Executive Yuan. As far as he knows, Blue and White want to amend it again. But when you revise again, a question will arise: which method are you practicing based on? The amendments passed the third reading on October 16 have not yet been announced and come into effect. When you want to amend the law again, when will the original provisions be revised? Should the provisions of October 16 be treated as the original provisions? That is not the current law.
Lai Zhongqiang pointed out that if Article 22 of the "Elderly Welfare Law" before the amendment on October 16 were to be amended as the current article, wouldn't it violate the principle of "nothing is discussed again"? So now we are not asking the Executive Yuan whether to reconsider or countersign, but we should be asking Legislative Yuan Han Guoyu, Huang Guochang, Fu Kunqi and others, "You have created such a big mess, how are you going to deal with the aftermath? How can you live up to the people?"
