Lessons From Taiwan’s Universal National Health Insurance: A Conversation With Taiwan’s Health Minister Ching-Chuan Yeh

Abstract

Taiwan established universal national health insurance in 1995, bringing overnight the then 41 percent uninsured under the umbrella of national health insurance (NHI). Financial worry due to illnesses is a thing of the past in Taiwan. As a result of successful cost containment, national health spending grew from the pre-NHI three-year average of 4.79 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to only 6.1 percent today. Tsung-Mei Cheng explores with Taiwan’s health minister Ching-Chuan Yeh, M.D., the ethical principles that underlie the NHI and how the NHI operates: financing, risk pooling, cost containment, provider payment, and the delivery system. Challenges for the future are discussed.