Vice President Lai Ching-te said that the government will implement fair and just mid and long-term reform of the National Health Insurance (NHI) and integrate the public health and NHI systems to augment the added value of the NHI as well as elevating the quality and efficiency of the health care delivery.

Vice President Lai said that following the founding of the NHI 26 years ago, the system has garnered a 90 percent satisfaction rating and lauded as the envy public health systems across the globe and the crowning achievement of Taiwan. However, since its founding, factors including an aging population, technological advancements, and the public’s rising expectations of new drugs and new health technologies, has continued to push for the expansion of the NHI global budget to cover new drugs, care for chronic and rare diseases as well as cancer. Due to the NHI’s limited resources, comprehensive considerations must be made to determine the best way forward in terms of adjusting reimbursement coverage of new drugs and new medical treatments as well as drug reimbursement terms. In addition, balancing the demands and supply of health care while improving the efficiency of service delivery has become the top priority of NHI policymaking.

Vice President Lai said that while the government was able to approve a 5.17 percent increase to the NHI global budget, expanding spending is not the only way to ensure the NHI’s sustainability. Looking forward, government departments must make better use of NHI premiums and continue to push for reforms aiming to leverage technology to cut wastage of resources and improve the quality of health care services delivered, while ensuring that the system’s costs are fairly distributed among the public.

In the past 26 years, the NHI has accumulated 65 billion health data entries and 2.3 billion medical imaging records, which has culminated into the largest health data bank in the world, which has aided Taiwan’s efforts in containing the spread of COVID-19, Vice President Lai said.

Looking ahead, leveraging the full potential of the data bank through emerging technologies including 5G, AI and blockchain and furthering collaborations between academia and industry to create smart health care and precision medicine solutions as well as technology-powered COVID-19 response shall be key to sustaining the NHI and long-term development of Taiwan’s health care sector.

However, Vice President Lai said that NHI reforms will require comprehensive communication between stakeholders of the medical community and civic groups. The reforms may only be implemented once a consensus is formed across society. Vice President Lai also expressed hopes that experts and scholars will be able to come up with a viable roadmap through forums.

[2021-9-23/CNA]