Representatives of payers and providers of the National Health Insurance Committee (NHIC) on Dec. 3 held separate press conferences expressing opposing views on the Executive Yuan’s decision to consent the allocation of NT$5.133 billion to supplement point values, which included some funding from the general government budget that were earmarked for the National Health Insurance reserve fund.

NHIC payer representatives voiced concerns that the Cabinet’s decision could set a precedent of opening other ways to using funds from the general government budget intended for the National Health Insurance (NHI) fund when the NHI safety reserve is deemed adequate. Joanne Liu, President of Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation, said that during the review of the 2024 NHI budget, the Legislative Yuan has explicitly decided to allocate NT$24 billion for 2023 and NT$ 20 billion for 2024 to bolster the NHI fund for the purposes of improving NHI finances and preventing increases to NHI premiums, as opposed to supplementing the value of medical points.

National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) Director General Shih Chung-liang said in a media interview an item under the annual NHI budget include an item that has been set aside to provide funding for “unexpected risks and/or policy changes,” which has not been used in many years and returned to the NHI fund each year, has swelled to NT$8.97 billion since 2003. As such, it is appropriate to draw funding from the NHI fund supplement medical point values. NHIA Director General Shih added that supplementing the medical point values with the NHI fund will not result in increases to NHI premiums in 2024.

Speaking from the perspective of providers, Taiwan College of Healthcare Executive President Hung Tzu-jen suggested to prevent similar disputes in the future, the general government budget for the NHI should be increased to establish a regularized mechanism to address fluctuations in the floating point value system.

[2023-12-3/Central News Agency (CNA)]