There’s a whole bunch of reasons. Part of it is also the deliberate underfunding of the system by the KMT in the attempt to get rid of public health insurance. There’s also a whole bunch of people that don’t have coverage so what happens to them who knows. Ma Ying Jeou also wanted to increase the monthly premium by some ridiculous amount after he won his second term. And that was on top of the deliberate increases to electricity and gas. It was after that attempt to increase the health insurance costs failed that they started changing the prescription amounts.
The system is relatively well funded these days as they added alternative tax income and hiked the premiums and copays .
There is a 6 month residence requirement I believe which is more than fair.
Doctors don’t prescribe more than a week or two of pills to everybody as it’s a way to make money !
The people who don’t pay in have to rely on charity of some sort.
NIH payments are mandatory, if you stooMpaying for whateVer reason and then want to access again you have to pay the premiums for all the period you didn’t pay previously ! Doesn’t matter if you are a housewife or unemployed at least it didn’t when we had to pay back my wife’s premiums.
My wife doesn’t work and I have to pay hers and the kids premiums, it’s not social welfare! No wonder people don’t have kids anymore.
They hiked the premiums and copayments because the system is severely strained. Part of it is they are trying to stop this ridiculous culture of going to hospitals and demanding a bag of pills for a runny nose. Part of it too is corruption and mismanagement.