Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

NHI system plays lottery with lives

Curtis Smith

In his denial to the Legislative Yuan to legalize euthanasia (“Government cannot take lead in law on euthanasia: Hsueh,” April 27, page 2), I suggest Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) should come clean and admit that his ministry, through selective neglect of national health insurance, is responsible for countless assisted deaths. Denying insurance coverage for serious cancer patients is the same as pulling feeding tubes for assisted suicide.

I am referring to advanced-care cancer patients who are deprived of critically needed medicines due to the National Health Insurance policy to cut funding to counter high costs, with the excuse that the NHI “can’t cover everybody.”

Expedited US$500m arms deal planned

Taipei Times

The administration of US President Joe Biden is preparing a US$500 million weapons package for Taiwan, using a fast-track authority that it has relied on to speed arms to Ukraine, people familiar with the matter said.

Plans for the package involve sending stockpiles of US weapons or support equipment to Taiwan under what is known as a Presidential Drawdown Authority, the people said on the condition of anonymity.

The equipment in the package was not immediately known.

Defense drills should include public

Taipei Times Editorials

The annual civil defense drill was held in Taipei on Thursday, with participants simulating responses to natural disasters and war. The Taipei Fire Department said the exercises emphasized air raid evacuation, distribution of supplies, prevention and control of infectious diseases, and disaster rescue, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

CNA cited Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) as saying that this year’s drills involved a scenario in which the military would be unable to provide assistance with those measures. The drills involved rescuers, volunteers, members of civil defense units and reservists, as well as 144 active and reserve alternative service members. A civil defense program with annual exercises helps ensure Taiwan’s readiness in the event of a conflict with China, but the government should expand the scope of the program to include members of the public.

Taiwan’s national identity problem

Simon H. Tang

Regarding the rise of doubts in Taiwan about US military aid if China invades, I have the following response. The doubts are reasonable, assuming that a Chinese takeover is not an existential threat to Taiwanese.

It is not, though, a response I would expect to hear from a Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese or Ukrainian.

Some Taiwanese academics and politicians do not believe a Chinese takeover is a threat to Taiwanese, not because they do not believe a Chinese takeover is a possibility or a probability, but rather because they do not believe, in their hearts, that there really is such a thing as a Taiwanese people.

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