It is the 20th anniversary of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) program this year. President Ma Ying-jeou on Tuesday gave the Order of Brilliant Star with Violet Grand Cordon to the two experts who devised the program. They are Harvard University Public Health Professor Hsiao Ching-lun and Princeton University Economics Professor Uwe Ernst Reinhardt.
Hsiao is an expert in the healthcare industry and a member of Obamacare’s planning team. Ma said Hsiao was a consultant for Taiwan’s health insurance planning team in 1988.
“Professor Hsiao continued to help develop our National Health Insurance program after it was put into effect in 1995,"said Ma.
"In 2004, the NHI program used Professor Hsiao’s reasonable pay scale system. The system reflects the cost differences among various medical services to make the cost of the health insurance program fair.”
President Ma also thanked Reinhardt for writing about the strengths of Taiwan’s NHI in US periodicals and articles. Reinhardt had even encouraged the US government to learn from Taiwan’s health insurance program.