Health
Taiwan’s NHI offers every citizen nearly equal financial access to comprehensive health services and provides all citizens with financial risk protection from large medical expenses. At the same time, it gives patients the right to freely choose their providers and for hospitals and physicians to freely choose their practice mode and be paid on a fee-for-service basis.
National Health Insurance in Taiwan
The current health care system in Taiwan, known as National Health Insurance (NHI), was instituted in 1995. NHI is a single-payer compulsory social insurance plan which centralizes the disbursement of health care dollars. The system promises equal access to health care for all citizens, and the population coverage had reached 99% by the end of 2004.[2] NHI is mainly financed through premiums, which are based on the payroll tax, and is supplemented with out-of-pocket payments and direct government funding. In the initial stage, fee-for-service predominated for both public and private providers. Most health providers operate in the private sector and form a competitive market on the health delivery side.