Health Care in Taiwan

Today our university sponsored a talk about the Taiwanese health care system by a doctor-turned-graduate-student in public health named Wang Shi-yi. They offered a free lunch, and I almost always enjoy events centered around Taiwan, so I went.

As I expected, the room was half-filled with Taiwanese, including one or two acquaintances, obviously proud of their compatriot Dr. Wang and their own achievements with universal single-payer health care. Citing recent studies of the system, Dr. Wang made two illuminating points:

1. Taiwan is poorer and much more densely populated than America, which makes its population more at risk for contagious disease. But since the adoption of universal health care, Taiwan has pulled its rates of infection down to below USA levels in almost all illnesses.
   
2. Taiwan pays for its single payer health system with dedicated taxes from individuals and employers, but this costs much less in per-capita government spending than the American health care system. Dr. Wang says, "This proves that universal single-payer health care systems do not mean more government spending on health care."

Of course, there really are some major caveats to these points, especially the second one. The government pays less because health care costs less in Taiwan. Doctors are paid in salaries, not fees for services. Drug costs are much lower. They have three times as many nurses as in the USA per capita. But even with these caveats, Taiwan's health care system and its spokespeople have solid, irrefutable points: universal single-payer coverage is better -- much better. It's one of those things the USA will definitely adopt someday, once we finally put to rest a whole slew of completely dead ideas.