Blue and White pushed for the 22nd Amendment to the "Elderly Welfare Act" to exempt most seniors aged 65 and above from health care premiums, and demanded central subsidy. This triggered a strong backlash from all walks of life. The National Taiwan University Hospital Enterprise Union and the Chengdu University Hospital Enterprise Union criticized through a joint statement that the already scarce medical resources have been turned into a tool to buy votes. They are using money to buy votes. They use the foundation of financial resources to cover up the real danger of the collapse of our country's medical care. "Free health insurance cards cannot exchange for hospital beds and medical personnel, and buying tickets with money will speed up digging your own grave."
The joint statement pointed out that this revision of the law involves various controversies such as reverse redistribution of "form excludes wealth and distributes substance", "legislative power to independent budget", constitutional conflict, "loss of mother law authorization" and rough deletion. The most worrying part is that it uses already scarce medical resources as a tool to buy votes, wrapped up in "not supporting full subsidies = not taking care of the elderly" to carry out moral blackmail and seize political interests.
The statement mentioned that the opposition party claimed that the policy of public budget subsidies for the elderly's health care premiums has been practiced in many counties and cities across Taiwan for many years, but the subsidy thresholds vary. Therefore, through this amendment to the law, the subsidy system is unified to avoid regional and financial differential treatment. However, this is "an excuse that puts the cart before the horse", and is perverse and adds fuel to the flames, accelerating the depletion of financial resources and covering up the actual crisis of the collapse of our country's medical care.
The union believes that spending tens of billions of government budget on comprehensive health insurance premium subsidies that lack real wealth allocation is tantamount to ignoring structural care gaps and the collapse of clinical manpower. It is not only contrary to the sustainable operation of medical resources, but also does not help to substantially improve the current medical plight of the elderly. On the contrary, it will shrink the discussion space for rational policies and force various groups in society to forcibly join forces to divide.
The joint statement emphasized that the vicious cycle of spending money to buy votes covers counties and cities governed by all parties and factions. It has been expanding in recent years. It should be reviewed, corrected and even stopped. However, our country's political arena ignores the shortage of medical resources and the dire situation of overworked medical personnel and continues to write checks to satisfy populism. The behavior is not limited to specific political parties. In the past, former Minister of Health and Welfare Qiu Taiyuan repeatedly declared that "health insurance premiums will never be raised", and current Minister Shi Chongliang stated that "hospitals should not borrow beds to meet the standard nurse-to-patient ratio."
Therefore, the joint statement emphasized that the labor unions strictly oppose the opposition political parties’ current amendments to the law. They do not take sides with politics. Instead, they use the government and the opposition and any political party, including the government and the opposition, to use the arbitrary spending of money on public affairs budgets, the delay in shelving the medical labor rights bill, and the declaration of freezing health insurance funds as vote-buying tools for manipulating populism, and even as a gravedigger shovel to hollow out the medical system. If they fail to rein in the precipice, they will eventually be doomed.
