For me I tried to use the card and it went red at the doctors. Called NHI and they said, we know you are back but you need to come in to reactivate it.
Whether I reactivated it or not, they were accruing the charges from day 1. And yea, they went in my account for $700 so it matters not how much you owe them.
Wow in a sense mobsters are better. At least they ask first
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And I didn’t even give them my bank info. To me it’s scary how much info the government shares in Taiwan.
Although to be fair I moved and they may have sent the bill to an old address.
I disagree and think that it’s not going to actually help the NHI.
My family are returning to Taiwan for a visit in January. We don’t need access to NHI (and indeed we’re covered by insurance from our jobs here even if we needed medical treatment). We would have readily paid three months and just deactivated on our way out under the old system but the prospect of paying endless premiums means we’ll enter on foreign passports, and withdraw from household registration. If the entry on foreign passports still triggers NHI we’ll just stay away from Taiwan for two years until they cancel the billing.
I’m pretty sure we’re not alone. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the majority of Taiwanese who go home to visit family aren’t sick, and those who would have previously happily (or grudgingly) paid the three months’ NHI tax will now simply find a way of avoiding it, while those who do need medical treatment will either just pay the premiums or figure out how to get “hired” to have immediate access to healthcare.
I suspect the overall financial benefit will be negligible or even negative, and this whole thing is just to placate the bigmouths who complain about people abusing the system. The people who genuinely abuse the system will still figure out how to do it, while the embuggerance this causes regular folks like me and my family means people are just going to withdraw from the system entirely.
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Nah, I get the bills emailed every month.
This time, I am thinking about just using my Australian passport to enter Taiwan to avoid being reenrolled.
My husband has no choice this time round as he only has a Taiwanese passport and will be re-enrolled .
So we will probably do the same as @spaint and avoid Taiwan for 2 years after this trip and after that (provided he passes the Australian citizenship test) he can also enter Taiwan on an Australian passport in future to avoid re-enrolment.
NHI has no information regarding NWHOR. They only talk about foreigners and those with household registration, not us in the middle.
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Speaking if this change, i just paid the last bill for my husband’s which I had forgotten about.
They’ve changed the law so that citizens overseas must keep paying but they still don’t allow the use of overseas credit cards for payment. Stupid.
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Note to self: close all TW bank accounts when moving away for more than 3 months at a time…
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Only thing is, once he shows up again now and going forward, and you can’t cancel on the way out, the charges keep accruing. Unless you figure he just won’t return to Taiwan to live again? I might be missing something here though.
I suspect the way their systems are getting more integrated, it will easily flag someone entering on a same name same birthday but different passport, mostly to catch army draft dodgers.
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It’s not super clear but it sounds like when you’re household registration is ‘moved out’ after 2 years then the charges and coverage stop.
I agree that they may figure it out and force re-enrolment. Although my Taiwan passport is issued in my Chinese name and my Australian passport in my birth name so maybe they won’t figure it out
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Well that does not always work as many people use a different name on the foreign passport. Quite common for Taiwanese to use an English first name with the Taiwan surname.
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NHI allows enrollees to claim for medical expenses incurred outside of Taiwan.
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I’m already covered by Australia’s medicare system. The small out of pocket costs would cost more to translate than they are worth.
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Or just transfer out the money and keep the account open? Not sure if they can put a negative balance on your account. Opening an account takes an hour.
Didn’t see this posted yet, seems to summarise the situation for citizens well:
This new article still uses the ambiguous phrase “terminating their Taiwanese household registration” when referring to how to avoid incurring the payment obligation when living overseas.
So several questions:
- Again, to avoid NHI payment obligations for those NWHR living overseas, does this just mean “moving out” of the HHR, or does this mean something more drastic like renouncing Taiwanese nationality/citizenship?
- For overseas-born NWOHR (with NWOHR passport) who never ever had any HHR, are there no NHI payment obligations?
- If an NWOHR decides, for the first time, to obtain HHR and obtain full citizenship rights, with the intention of living in Taiwan and joining NHI (but without an employer who pays NHI), then how does that work? I understood from the article that this would fall under the category of “individuals living abroad for more than four years”, hence one must pay 2 years (24 months) of back-payments, plus continue waiting and paying for 6 more months while living in Taiwan, before being able to use NHI services. In other words, 24+6=30 months of payments plus 6 months waiting, before you can access NHI. Is that right? How much are monthly NHI payments?
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Usually NWOHR have to stay in Taiwan for a year before they can get HHR.
Also foreigners who naturalize need years of residence prior anyway. So back pay should not apply to them as they should be already enrolled in NHI when getting HHR.
Of course there are many different situations where this might not be the case.
Do you have a source for this?
This means that a NWOHR joining NHI for the first time:
- Must live in Taiwan for 1 year (continuously?)
- Must pay 12 months of premiums during that 1 year
- Need not pay any back-payments (like required 2 years back-payments for NWHR living overseas for more than 4 years)
- Can access NHI services only after 1 year
Is that right?
Articles 9, 10
Immigration Act - Article Content - Laws & Regulations Database of The Republic of China (Taiwan)
National without household registration - Wikipedia
Just look up ways for NWOHR to move to Taiwan. There are several ways. One needs a residence certificate.
Many do it through work which automatically enrolls one to NHI.
Also they require one to stay in Taiwan a certain amount of time. Enrolling in NHI is cost effective and easy.
AFAIK there is not any back pay when one enrolls for the first time.
You only need to live in Taiwan 1 year to get household registration.
Lots of ways to get residency. Usually you need to wait 6 months after residency approval to enroll into NHI or you are enrolled immediately when you get a job
I think this is the right place for this question.
Background
Daughter born outside Taiwan to a Taiwanese mother and British father. We as a family do not live in Taiwan and don’t have plans in the future to do do. However, we want her to know about her Taiwanese background, and have a Taiwanese identity.
We are now looking at getting a Taiwanese passport for her. One of the steps involves getting her registered on the household registration. This is when NHI contributions for the child came up - I think it’s around NT800 a month.
Once we have the passport we will leave Taiwan. On the one hand, I can afford the contributions at the moment. However, I’m cautious about committing my daughter to paying for the rest of her life. If we get her a Taiwan passport, is that what we are in effect doing?