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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Lawmakers debate NHI policy for Chinese students
Taiwanese and overseas Chinese students hold a news conference yesterday in Taipei to call for equal treatment for all students under the National Health Insurance program. Photo: Wu Po-hsiung, Taipei Times
By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
Lawmakers yesterday debated the government’s proposal to include Chinese students under the National Health Insurance （NHI） program and require them, along with other foreign students, to pay full insurance premiums.
As the negotiations over the proposed amendment to the National Health Insurance Act （全民健康保險法） got under way in the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, several student groups criticized the idea of increasing NHI premiums for foreign students and called for “true equal rights.”
The government in November last year proposed extending NHI coverage to Chinese students in Taiwan, but ending government-subsidized premiums for all non-Taiwanese students, including overseas compatriots and other non-Chinese students now covered by the NHI program.
Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） lawmakers railed against the policy, with Chiang Wan-an （蔣萬安） questioning why other foreign students have to be “dragged down” by the Chinese students’ NHI coverage.
If equality is to be truly realized it should be subsidizing Chinese students rather than canceling subsidies, the KMT lawmakers said.
Lawmakers also locked horns over how the revision should be enacted.
While Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） lawmakers proposed an amendment to the NHI law to avoid politically sensitive changes, KMT lawmakers said that the clause concerning the status of Chinese students should be amended from “stay” to “residency” in the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area （臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例）.
No consensus was reached and a cross-caucus negotiation presided over by the legislative speaker has yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan International Student Movement, the International Socialist Forward, the Anti-Commercialization of Education Union and the Youth Action Committee of the Higher Education Union criticized the government for “putting up a facade of humanitarian considerations and the value of human rights” while burdening non-Taiwanese students with increased NHI premiums.
The groups said they had secured the signatures of more than 300 Taiwanese and foreign students, while more than 50 student organizations are planning to rally against the increased premiums and demand that all students to be treated the same.
Non-Taiwanese students pay about NT$749 （US$24.59） a month for NHI coverage, and since young people are less likely to use medical resources, about half of the total NT$224 million NHI premiums paid in 2015 was returned to the fund for public use.
“The inclusion of Chinese students on the NHI would produce the same effect; it is unfair that they are not allowed the same rights as non-Taiwanese students,” they said.
Additional reporting by Peng Wan-hsin
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
