The legislature’s vote on a proposal to amend Taiwan’s Senior Citizens Welfare Act to make health care free for some lower income elderly people has been postponed after backlash from medical groups, who say it could make Taiwan's current health care system unsustainable.
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00:00Medical groups in Taiwan are slamming a proposal by Taiwan's opposition legislators that would
00:06make health insurance free for lower-income people over the age of 65, and could cost
00:11the central government hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
00:14The burden of cutting-edge finance like this is actually making the current low-income
00:20class and the future users of medical resources more likely to face a shortage of resources.
00:28Because of the backlash, the legislature has postponed its vote on the proposal, which
00:32was supposed to happen on Friday.
00:34Lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party, who together hold a
00:38legislative majority, have also said they will change the proposal to cover only those
00:43who don't pay any income tax.
00:45That's much stricter than their original proposed threshold, which applied to anyone who paid
00:49an income tax of under 20 percent, which would have meant over 80 percent of people over
00:5465 would have qualified, a population of over 3 million people.
01:10Push back on the proposal comes as Taiwan is on course to become a super-aged society
01:14in 2025, meaning over 20 percent of its population will be over 65, and as its fertility rate
01:21already one of the lowest in the world, is in decline.
01:24Medical groups worry the proposal would place an unfair burden on younger Taiwanese, a population
01:28that is decreasing, and destabilize Taiwan's current healthcare system, which is often
01:33rated as one of the best in the world.
01:36The health ministry also warns it will lead to generational inequalities.
01:40But it seems, for now, opposition lawmakers are determined to pass the revised changes
01:45in the coming week, setting up a potentially dramatic showdown in the legislature.
01:49Hank Hsu and Kynz Kuranda for Taiwan Plus.