Insideview
NHI challenges and opportunities
The ECCT’s Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Enhancement committees jointly hosted a lunch on the topic “Sustainability of Taiwan’s national health insurance system - challenges and opportunities” featuring guest speaker Dr Donald TF Shang, Director-General of the Department of Social Insurance, under the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW).
Read the full event report here.
In his presentation, DG Shang gave an overview of Taiwan’s various social insurance schemes for which the Department of Social Insurance is responsible, including the national pension system, national health insurance, national long-term care insurance (which is still under development).
Arguably the biggest problem facing social insurance systems in Taiwan is the rapidly-ageing population, with people over the age of 65 on track to account for over 20% of the population by 2026 and 38% by 2060 (based on the current trajectory). This would make the proportion of Taiwan’s aged population much higher than European countries and even higher than Japan and South Korea. The rising number of people depending on the contributions of an ever-shrinking number of working people will make keeping social insurance systems solvent extremely challenging.
