The current financial health of country's National Health Insurance Scheme (NHI) does not require the health insurance premiums to be raised. According to a report by the Central News Agency country's minister of health and welfare Chiu Tai-yuan has said despite speculation in the media about financial pressure on the health budget, there is no requirement to raise the health insurance premiums currently.
Mr Chiu was responding to a query by a journalist if the health insurance premiums would be raised next year. He said, "There are still quite a lot of variables in estimating NHI, and financial resources may fluctuate. I dare not be definitive about it now, but in essence, there will be no need to raise NHI premiums."
The report also quotes an article published by the Taiwan-based newspaper China Times reporting that the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) has a draft budget for 2026 with growth figures ranging from 2.9% to 5.5%. According to the MOHW's internal calculations, if the 5.5% figure was adopted, the NHI budget would increase by NT$51.5bn to NT$988.31bn, potentially leading to upward pressure on premiums.
Taiwan’s NHI system has completed three decades and currently has a coverage rate of about 99%, a distinction that perhaps no other country in the world has achieved.
However, rapid ageing of the country’s population and declining birth rates are a warning that an ageing society will increase healthcare expenditures, while a shrinking workforce could undermine the system’s financial sustainability, leading to intergenerational inequities. These demographic trends could make the country’s public health insurance system unsustainable.