Problems
Even with all their success in their health care system, Taiwan has suffered some misfortunes. The government is not taking in enough money to cover the services it provides, so it is borrowing money from banks. The revenue base is capped so it does not keep pace with the increase in national income. Premiums are regulated by politicians and they are afraid to raise premiums because of voters. The country is slow at adopting technology except for drugs. There is a low doctor-to-population ratio resulting in too many patients depending on too few doctors. Patients visit the doctor more frequently causing doctors to keep visits short to about 2 to 5 minutes per patient. There is no system to regulate systematic reporting of clinical performance, patient outcomes and adverse events.
Read more about this topic: Health In Taiwan
Famous quotes containing the word problems:
“Our [adult] children have an adult’s right to make their own choices and have the responsibility of living with the consequences. If we make their problems ours, they avoid that responsibility, and we are faced with problems we can’t and shouldn’t solve.”
—Jane Adams (20th century)
“The Settlement ... is an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems which are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city. It insists that these problems are not confined to any one portion of the city. It is an attempt to relieve, at the same time, the overaccumulation at one end of society and the destitution at the other ...”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)