IPRMA organized a joint press conference with the American Chamber of Commerce, the European Chamber of Commerce, the Japan Chamber of Commerce and the representative from the healthcare industry and academia. They urge the government to view healthcare spending as an investment in health. According to the “2023 Taiwan Health Investment Study”, increasing health investment will save more than NT$100 billion in treatment costs every year due to the improvement of people's health status.
The 2023 Taiwan Health Investment Study was commissioned by IRPMA and conducted by PwC. Ms. Wang Li-Li, the CEO of the PwC and the author of the study, pointed out that increasing the investment in health will enhance the nation’s health index, improve productivity, and consequently lead to GDP growth and increased government tax revenue. Furthermore, enhancing the access to new drugs and adopting international treatment guidelines will fortify Taiwan's healthcare system and enhance the global competitiveness of Taiwan’s biopharmaceutical industry.
The study points out that Taiwan is on the verge of becoming a super-aged society. According to the National Development Council’s projections, by 2050, Taiwan is expected to have over 7.6 million people aged over 65. Consequently, the annual healthcare expenditure for elderly care is anticipated to surpass NT$620 billion.
However, based on the current employment rate of the working-age population, it is projected by 2050, the working population will decline by 3.8 million individuals. This decrease is expected to have a notable impact on the NHI premium revenue, resulting in a reduction of NT$200 billion.
Based on this study, between 2018 and 2022, approximately 376,000 individuals (equivalent to around 2.2% of the working-age population) were unemployed due to personal health issues or the need to care for relatives with health issues. The study presents a scenario in which investing in health could maybe enable 10% of this aforementioned population to re-join the workforce. As a result, the GDP could experience an increase of NT$68 billion, with the government's tax revenue potentially rising by NT$3.9 billion annually.
Finally, the scenario study predicts that if the nation’s overall health status were 5-year younger than the current status, it could potentially result in an annual savings of NT$100 billion in treatment costs.
The study conducted interviews with numerous experts who emphasized a range of strategies, such as diversified funding sources, to enhance health investment. Their suggestions include: using tax revenues to fund NHS, separating the budget for precision medicine and cancer prevention from the NHS global budget, increasing co-payments, supplementing health insurance with commercial insurance, and promoting the use of instruction drugs and self-medication.
The experts further suggest that this task should be led by high-ranking government authorities to establish a cross-departmental health investment committee directly under the Executive Yuan. The committee will be in charge of integrating the resources, giving the MOHW more power and resources and monitoring the investment performance index (average life expectancy, cancer survival rate, etc.).
【2023-08-02 / Economic Daily】
