US Healthcare System versus Taiwan's
By the end of the twentieth century, Taiwan had become a wealthy country. That did not, however, change the fact that they still had poor healthcare—almost half of the country’s citizens were not covered. Taiwan’s Hojeng Chang, an official back then, set out to fix this.
Because Taiwan is a small island, Chang, in an interview for NPR said, "We always look abroad internationally for ideas" (Reid, 2008). In other words, Taiwan compared healthcare systems around the world and took what they saw as successful and left what they saw as potential detriments. “They wanted a system that gave everybody equal access to health care — free choice of doctors, with no waiting time — and a system that encouraged a lot of competition among medical providers” (Reid, 2008).
The resulting system they came up with was one that closely resembled Canada’s or the US’s Medicare system with more benefits. They came up with a single government-run system that forces everyone to pitch in and pay for. "It has drug benefits, vision care, traditional Chinese medicine, kidney dialysis, inpatient care, outpatient care, just about everything under the sun," Cheng says, (Reid, 2008).
Taiwanese didn’t like the idea of gatekeepers because they like to decide for themselves who they want to see. Thus, there is no queue nor gatekeepers that control the access to specialists. Taiwan achieves remarkable efficiency in the way they run their healthcare system. “Everybody here has to have a smart card to go to the doctor. The doctor puts it in a reader and the patient 's history and medications all show up on the screen. The bill goes directly to the government insurance office and is paid automatically” (Reid, 2008). Thus, Taiwan has the lowest administrative costs in the world—less than two percent.
The smartcard is also used to track people’s pattern of use. If one has used it to go see a doctor or a hospital more than twenty times a month, they get a little visit from a government official from
Because Taiwan is a small island, Chang, in an interview for NPR said, "We always look abroad internationally for ideas" (Reid, 2008). In other words, Taiwan compared healthcare systems around the world and took what they saw as successful and left what they saw as potential detriments. “They wanted a system that gave everybody equal access to health care — free choice of doctors, with no waiting time — and a system that encouraged a lot of competition among medical providers” (Reid, 2008).
The resulting system they came up with was one that closely resembled Canada’s or the US’s Medicare system with more benefits. They came up with a single government-run system that forces everyone to pitch in and pay for. "It has drug benefits, vision care, traditional Chinese medicine, kidney dialysis, inpatient care, outpatient care, just about everything under the sun," Cheng says, (Reid, 2008).
Taiwanese didn’t like the idea of gatekeepers because they like to decide for themselves who they want to see. Thus, there is no queue nor gatekeepers that control the access to specialists. Taiwan achieves remarkable efficiency in the way they run their healthcare system. “Everybody here has to have a smart card to go to the doctor. The doctor puts it in a reader and the patient 's history and medications all show up on the screen. The bill goes directly to the government insurance office and is paid automatically” (Reid, 2008). Thus, Taiwan has the lowest administrative costs in the world—less than two percent.
The smartcard is also used to track people’s pattern of use. If one has used it to go see a doctor or a hospital more than twenty times a month, they get a little visit from a government official from
References: Hoban, R. (2013, August 28). Cost of Care. North Carolina Health News. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2013/08/28/different-cultures-different-systems-comparing-health-care-in-the-u-s-and-taiwan/ Reid, T. (2008, April 15). Taiwan Takes Fast Track to Universal Health Care. NPR. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story