Medical Device Price Ceiling: Is the Health Ministry Doing Right by the People, or Driving Out Foreign Manufacturers to Protect Domestic Counterfeit Competitors?
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Medical Device Price Ceiling: Is the Health Ministry Doing Right by the People, or Driving Out Foreign Manufacturers to Protect Domestic Counterfeit Competitors?

This article criticizes the controversy surrounding Health Minister Chen Shih-chung's promotion of 'medical device price ceiling limits,' arguing it is a 'clockwise government' restricting people's constitutionally-protected right to purchase high-quality advanced medical devices at their own expense. The author points out that advanced medical devices are mostly imported from abroad, priced high but with superior quality and effectiveness, while domestic and mainland manufacturers mostly produce low-cost 'roadside stall quality' counterfeit products. Setting price ceilings will drive out foreign manufacturers, forcing citizens to choose less effective domestic and mainland cheap goods while letting domestic manufacturers reap exorbitant profits. The author questions whether this policy aims to protect cross-strait medical device merchants' cash flow and actual-expense medical insurance, and worries Taiwan will be forced to wait for mainland counterfeit advances in foreign technology,

#medical-device-ceiling #health-ministry #Chen-Shih-chung #medical-devices #price-caps #counterfeit-products #actual-expense-insurance
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Health Minister Chen Shih-chung created this controversy over the medical device price ceiling limit for life-saving medical devices. The author discovered many people don’t understand the situation, not knowing why something that can save their own life, reduce treatment suffering, something good they’re willing to buy themselves, is being prohibited by the clockwise government…

Actually this relates to advanced medical devices where $99.9%$ come from foreign medical device manufacturers. Good things indeed are priced higher. Not only will materials use premium goods, production technology and quality inspection yield rates are spared no cost to ensure every single piece reaches the highest quality.

Using more common language, it’s like LV luxury goods.

But domestic medical device merchants, even mainland medical device merchants actually also have the capability to manufacture similar, or frankly just cost-down counterfeit products, these cheap goods have low unit prices and yield rates, generously speaking called ordinary, with imitated effectiveness achieving 60-70% of advanced medical devices. As for the remaining 30-40% (or possibly even higher) of medical effectiveness, that’s the proprietary core secret from long-term research by foreign advanced medical device manufacturers. This is something cross-strait manufacturers cannot touch, only able to substitute using other methods, causing effectiveness not nearly as good. This is the main reason.

Using common language, it’s like the same package for carrying things, but what cross-strait manufacturers make is just roadside stall quality.

So when the Tsai government sets price ceilings, driving out foreign premium goods, citizens end up only able to choose between cheap goods from Taiwan and mainland manufacturers.

The Hidden Agenda Behind Medical Device Ceilings

The above all shares from the perspective of medical effectiveness issues. So where exactly is the hidden agenda?

Let’s simply quantify the concepts above. If good things with advanced medical devices cost $4$ with profits of $6$, cheap counterfeit medical devices cost only $0.5$ with profits reaching $9.5$…

Get it? I won’t say more, you just need to know the higher the cash flow of cross-strait medical device merchants, the more they can do with cash… and driving out foreign advanced medical device manufacturers from Taiwan is just the first step.

The ultimate sacrifice is that people, even if they have money, can only use lower-effectiveness, lower-durability roadside stall goods. The final result is constantly falling into a vicious cycle. Even when foreign manufacturers produce more advanced high-end medical devices, we can only wait miserably for cross-strait manufacturers to hurry and counterfeit them…

Also, many people likely already know, the reason the Tsai government set medical device ceilings is reportedly partly to protect actual-expense medical insurance… You spend big money every year buying medical insurance, then the government changes the law, and suddenly you can’t buy more expensive medical devices. But the premiums haven’t seen any discounts either.

No wonder when the Tsai government secretly tried to create medical device ceilings, people questioned: aren’t we a democratic and free country? How does it feel 87% like the Communist Party?

You think the discussion now is really just about medical device ceilings? That’s because your vision isn’t far enough.