Citizens will likely have to pay more out of pocket for medical tests and examinations in the future. That was the word from Lee Po-chang, director of the National Health Insurance Administration, on Thursday.
Lee said the administration is mulling a hike in national health insurance fees because the current rate civilians pay is not high enough to cover the nation’s medical expenses. The National Health Insurance Administration has been sustaining losses for many years. It suffered a NT$33.7 billion (US$1.15 billion) deficit in 2019, and another deficit of NT$7.5 billion (US$255 million) in this year’s Q1.
The administration had lowered the health insurance fee by 0.22% in 2016, and because of this, began to lose money in 2017.
To combat these losses, Lee says that the administration is planning to charge more for a number of medical tests and examinations. However, there will be an annual fee cap of NT$3,500 per citizen. Lee says payments for prescription drugs will be going up as well. Out-of-pocket payments for prescription drugs will go from NT$200 (US$7) per prescription to NT$300-500 (US$10-17).