Taiwan National Health Scheme "In March"

The director-general of Taiwan's Department of Health, B Zhang, has said the DoH's biggest project this year will be establishing the new Central health Insurance Bureau, which will enable the new universal health insurance system to take effect. While legislation to introduce the NT$5.1 billion ($193.5 million) program was due to be passed by the Legislative Yuan this month, Mr Zhang said it would take longer than that to set up the Bureau, and he expected the scheme to take effect in March.

Late last year the government had said it was determined to get the new system running in january, but problems have included a lack of consensus on insurance among health industry groups, local governing bodies and farmers' cooperatives, and also that Taiwan lacks enabling legislative infrastructure for a new agency to regulate health issues. This has prevented the Department from setting budgets for the new agency or recruiting staff.

Meantime, Taiwan had 32,101 pharmaceutical-related businesses in 1993, up 119 on 1992, says Department of Health data, published in Pharma Japan. 13,624 of these were drug traders, and of these there were 453 fewer marketers at 13,375, and manufacturers were down three to 249. Good Manufacturing Practice-conforming manufacturers fell by four to 22.