Radio Taiwan International
Date: 07 May, 2020
By: Paula Chao
President Tsai Ing-wen (CNA photo)
Tsai set up the Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee under the Presidential Office in March 2017. [FULL STORY]
Taiwan’s Single-Payer National Health Insurance
Milken Institute Review
Date: May 4, 2020
By: tsung-mei cheng
The idea of single-payer (government) health insurance — sometimes made more appealing to Americans by calling it Medicare for All and first proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders in 2017 — has gained considerable traction thanks in large part to the Democratic presidential primaries. A January Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that a narrow majority of Americans (56 percent) favor Medicare for All. But the candidates who want a single-payer system haven’t spelled out precisely what they mean. And most Americans, it is safe to say, have at best a fuzzy idea about what a true single-payer approach is and how it would work.
If Americans are somewhat familiar with any single-payer system, it’s the one in Canada. Here, I outline another single-payer system built almost from scratch more recently — and in a place that’s even more affluent than Canada: the island of Taiwan. Arguably the most startling aspect of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) system is how they manage to get high-quality outcomes for a small fraction of what Americans pay — and how well they have managed the coronavirus pandemic. But I get ahead of myself.
The Origin Story
Before Taiwan chose to go the single-payer route, it had a crazy-quilt of 13 separate insurance schemes — Labor Insurance, Government Employees Insurance, Farmers Insurance and so on — which together covered just 59 percent of the population. And a disproportionate number among the remaining 41 percent were people who could least afford to go without: children, women, the elderly and disabled, and informal sector workers who had to pay out of pocket for needed care or forego it. Impoverishment from costly illnesses was commonplace, and health disparities were wide.
But when Taiwan decided that enough was enough, it plowed through a thicket of obstacles in relatively short order. After some seven and a half years of planning and 18 months of toiling through the legislative process, the government implemented its national insurance program in March 1995 — a full five years ahead of the original schedule. And once in place, it was implemented in startlingly little time: by the end of 1995, 90 percent of Taiwan’s then 21 million residents were enrolled. [FULL STORY]
Taiwan's foreign ministry asks UN health agency to refrain from kowtowing to Beijing
Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/07
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer
WHO Legal Counsel Derek Walton. (Screenshot from WHO’s streaming video)
The UN health agency’s annual assembly will be held virtually within two weeks, and much attention has been focused on Taiwan’s participation in addition to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Taiwan had been invited to the World Health Assembly (WHA) from 2009 to 2016 as an observer, but the island nation’s access has been blocked in recent years due to Beijing's growing pressure on international organizations to exclude Taiwan.
Answering a question at a press briefing Wednesday (May 7) concerning Taiwan’s invitation to the upcoming WHA on behalf of Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Derek Walton, a legal counsel for the WHO, said Taiwan’s participation is a decision to be made by the agency’s member states.
In his response, which included mostly officials statements that other WHO staff had made before, Walton specifically referred to Taiwan as “Taiwan, China,” while stressing that the WHO Secretariat is not entitled to decide Taiwan’s participation. [FULL STORY]
Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/07/2020
By: Stacy Hsu, Tang Pei-chun and Joseph Yeh
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (CNA File Photo)
In a press briefing, Pompeo reiterated Washington's support for Taipei's participation as an observer in this year's WHA, the decision-making body of the WHO, which will be held online from May 18-19 due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
"Today I want to call upon all nations, including those in Europe, to support Taiwan's participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly and in other relevant United Nations venues," he said.
He also urged WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to invite Taiwan to the WHA, "as he has the power to do, and as his predecessors have done on multiple occasions."
[FULL STORY]
ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE: The Society for Wildlife and Nature said Chinese ships have dredged over 100,000 tonnes of sand daily from the Formosa Banks area
Taipei Times
Date: May 08, 2020
By: Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNA
Chinese dredgers are pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo courtesy of Society for Wildlife and Nature president Jeng Ming-shiou
The society called for an cross-agency collaboration involving the ministries of justice, economic affairs and interior, and the Mainland Affairs Council to amend laws and give the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) a legal basis for protecting the shoal.
The shoal, which is near the median line of the Taiwan Strait, is a traditional fishing area for Penghu County fishers.
Chinese ships have dredged more than 100,000 tonnes of sand daily from the shoal over the past few years, which has altered the sand and sediment and poses a catastrophe for local marine ecology, society president Jeng Ming-shiou (鄭明修) told a news conference in Taipei.
[FULL STORY]
Radio Taian International
Date: 06 May, 2020
By: Shirley Lin
Commemorative coins for the upcoming presidential inauguration.
Gold coins with a face value of NT$2,000 (US$6) will go on sale at NT$56,000 (US$1,900) each. This is the highest value ever for a gold coin in Taiwan’s history. Silver coins with a face value of NT$200 (US$7) will also be sold for NT$1,600 (US$53) each. [FULL STORY]
devpolicy.org
Date: May 7, 2020
By: Yun-Ching Tseng, Yan-Tzong Cheng, Chun-Hsuan Sung
The whole world has been fighting against COVID-19 since the outbreak started in the beginning of 2020. Taiwan, only 130 kilometers from mainland China, not only has numerous visitors from China, but also has many people working and studying in China. Considering Taiwan’s strong trade and travel ties with China, even Johns Hopkins University initially predicted Taiwan would be one of the hardest-hit countries in the world. However, Taiwan’s aggressive measures have paid off and successfully kept COVID-19 at bay.
Taiwan’s core strategies
Taiwan was able to avoid a widespread outbreak of COVID-19 for several reasons. First of all, Taiwan used hard-learned lessons from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 and alerted the government to monitor the pandemic since early January. Secondly, the government quickly implemented strategies in response to the pandemic, including the following three core components:
The Entry Quarantine System allows passengers to fill their health declaration form online before arriving at their destination. Not only does this system speed up the process of immigration clearance, it also connects to the National Health Insurance Administration’s existing database to alert doctors of their patients’ travel history for better coordination with monitoring quarantines. [FULL STORY]
Museum director hopes Taiwan’s improving pandemic situation will bring back visitors in second half of 2020
Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/06
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
National Palace Museum. (Facebook photo)
As the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to claim victims around the world, many museums in Taiwan have suffered a dramatic decrease in visitor numbers, including the NPM and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. In late March, the NPM was also forced to shorten operation hours and limit guests to 100 at a time due to the social distancing guidelines issued by the country's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
During a NPM budget review at the Legislative Yuan Wednesday morning, Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) pointed out that the Taipei branch of the world-renowned museum only recorded 10,141 visitors last month, compared to the 340,563 visitors it received in April last year. She added that the NPM's revenue from ticket sales also dropped from last year's NT$90.5 million (US$3 million) to this year's NT$550,000, reported UDN.
NPM President Wu Mi-cha (吳密察) described the steep visitor drop as the worst the museum has seen since its establishment in Taipei in 1965. He explained that another factor for the significant decrease in visitors was Taiwan's entry ban on international tourists, who the NPM relies on for most of its income. [FULL STORY]
Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/06/2020
By: Matt Yu and Emerson Lim
CNA file photo of a helicopter of the same type
"The 0H-58D helicopter, with tail number 634, hard-landed during a flight training test," the AASFC said in press statement. "Fortunately, all personnel are safe."
The Army is evaluating the damage, and a special taskforce will be assigned to investigate the incident, the AASFC said.
All Army flight training will be suspended until the cause of the accident has been determined, the AASFC said [FULL STORY]
Taipei Times
Date: May 07, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA
Applicants for a one-time NT$10,000 COVID-19 pandemic relief payment line up outside the Sanchong District Office in New Taipei City yesterday.
Photo: Chou Hsiang-yun, Taipei Times
The Executive Yuan on Monday announced that it would provide the money to workers not covered by social insurance programs, as well as farmers and fishers who do not qualify for other forms of financial aid.
The program is expected to assist 340,000 people who work, but are not enrolled in labor insurance, farmers’ insurance or any other social insurance program, and have a household income of 1.5 to two times the average minimum living cost in their city or county.
A total of 1.4 million farmers and fishers who make less than NT$500,000 per year and do not qualify for a separate NT$30,000 grant would also be entitled to the payment, the central government said. [FULL STORY]
