Blue and White forcefully pass the "Elderly Health Premium Exemption" Wang Zhengxu: It may seriously affect the financial burden of health insurance

Legislators from the Kuomintang and the People's Party jointly passed the 22nd amendment to the "Elderly Welfare Law" on the third reading today (16th). Elderly people over 65 years old and whose income tax rate falls below 20% are exempt from paying health insurance premiums, with the central government footing the bill in full. Legislator Wang Zhengxu said that it may seriously impact the financial burden of health insurance, generational fairness and system sustainability!

Wang Zhengxu posted on Facebook, "If we want to improve the welfare and medical care of the elderly, we should use targeted subsidies, rather than the nearly completely free and centrally subsidized version of the law that Blue and White are pushing now. If the version of the law that was just passed by a forced vote is adopted, the income tax for those over 65 years old will be 20%. The following is a conditional estimate. The central government will subsidize at least 4.03 million people, and the subsidy funds will be as high as 40 billion yuan per year! Moreover, as our country becomes super-aged, the number of people subsidized and the amount of health insurance losses will continue to increase! It is a very heavy burden for the central government’s finances!

Wang Zhengxu pointed out that with limited government resources, the nearly 40 billion annual health insurance subsidy may directly impact and crowd out the "12 Strategic Plans for Nursing Manpower Policy Preparation", total health insurance growth, health insurance point value protection, and policy expenditures on rural areas and emergency and critical care. Policies such as the gradual stabilization of the medical sector's hard-fought improvements and the return of nursing manpower, if resources are diverted to elderly health care premium subsidies, may make the overall medical resources unable to be allocated rationally, and ultimately all citizens, including the elderly, will suffer.

Wang Zhengxu mentioned that a major problem with this revised version of the law is that the income tax rate cannot accurately distinguish the actual economic status of the elderly. According to the analysis results of Lian Xianming, President of the China Academy of Economics, using 2021 financial and tax data, people whose income tax rate does not reach 20%, 65 Although the average personal income of those over 20 years old is only NT$120,000, their average wealth is as high as NT$16 million. The same young people aged 25-64 whose tax rate does not reach 20% have an average income of nearly NT$400,000, but their average wealth is only NT$7 million.

Wang Zhengxu said, "I am also very worried about the results of this amendment to the law. It will seriously undermine the fairness of the health insurance system and even exacerbate generational injustice, because these premiums and tax pressures will only increase the burden on the young and middle-aged generations. This will not only be unhelpful to our country's current efforts to improve the population of young people, but will even have the opposite effect of low-income young people subsidizing high-asset retirement groups."

Wang Zhengxu emphasized, "Whether it is from the perspective of a physician, a representative of the medical profession, or even a citizen over 65 years old myself, I still want to clearly express my opposition to this revision of the old welfare law. The health insurance system should still maintain reasonable financial burdens and fair distribution between generations, so that it can take care of the health of Taiwanese people more sustainably."