The Legislative Yuan passed the third reading today to amend the law. For those over 65 years old who meet the income tax requirements, their health insurance premiums will be subsidized by the central government. Teng Xihua, spokesperson of the Private Health Insurance Supervision Alliance, denounced that subsidies should not only depend on age. Elderly people who are able to pay premiums are also exempted from paying premiums, but young adults who still have to pay premiums share the tax expenses. This is basically a bill that "brings disaster to the country and the people, leaves children with debt, creates class antagonism, ignores wealth distribution, and ruins justice for generations."
Teng Xihua said that in caring for the elderly, priority should be given to assisting those with financial difficulties, rather than using age and comprehensive income tax rate as the basis for large-scale subsidies. The calculation of income tax involves tax exemptions, deductions and different income categories. The applicable tax rate cannot directly reflect a person's complete financial ability. Some elderly people who are able to pay their own health insurance premiums may also be included in the subsidy.
She questioned that the young salaried class must pay their own health insurance premiums and also support the elderly’s insurance premiums through taxes. If the subsidy targets include retired elderly people with better financial conditions, does the government’s resource allocation comply with the principle of fairness? "Are all old people poor?" She emphasized that the government should provide assistance as long as there is financial difficulty, regardless of age.
Teng Xihua pointed out that according to previous estimates by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, more than 40 billion yuan will be spent annually on related subsidies. As the elderly population continues to increase, expenditures will expand in the future. She bluntly said, "Legislators have terms of office, but bad laws do not." After the bill is passed, the government must prepare a budget every year. It cannot only consider immediate political interests while leaving long-term fiscal responsibilities to the next generation.
She believes that if the government has a budget of tens of billions of dollars, it should consider how to inject national health insurance funds, expand payments for new drugs and new medical technologies, reduce patients' out-of-pocket burden, and improve medical payments so that medical hospitals can retain doctors, nurses and other medical personnel.
"Why should we pay for the premium that costs several thousand yuan a year, instead of helping him save hundreds of thousands a year in medical expenses?" Teng Xihua said that what the elderly and their families really need is to receive appropriate treatment when they are sick, to be able to afford new drugs, and to have enough medical manpower to provide care. These require continuous investment of resources by the National Health Insurance.
Teng Xihua also said that after the central government pays premiums, the National Health Insurance Administration will still receive premiums, and it cannot be directly said that health insurance revenue has been reduced as a result. The problem is that if the same public budget is used to inject additional funds into the health insurance fund, it will increase the resources available for health insurance. But now it is used to replace the premiums originally paid by the people. The national treasury has increased expenditures, but the same amount of resources have not been increased for health insurance.
She called on the government to prioritize the limited budget for the economically disadvantaged and improve medical security. She also asked the Executive Yuan to refrain from countersigning the third reading of the bill to prevent subsidy policies from deepening the burden gap between generations.
