In the past, if inmates in a prison were ill, the prison would contact physicians in medical institutions for treating the inmates; the inmates did not have to pay for the medication fees by themselves. This mode of the government paying the medical fees for inmates is in tandem with the practice of many advanced countries in the world. However, during the process of amending the second-generation National Health Insurance (NHI) in 2010, the legislators felt that inmates should enjoy equal rights as common citizens, and their medical needs should be protected by the NHI system. Thus, the amendment to the second-generation NHI was legalized to allow inmates to participate in the NHI system. 

To ensure that inmates will be covered by NHI after the implementation of the second-generation NHI, the Bureau of NHI has proposed the “NHI Program for Providing Medical Service to Insured Persons Kept in Correctional Institutions.” With this provision, inmates can receive proper medical care under the NHI System afterwards. 

In addition, as the basic living needs of the inmates in prisons, such as food, clothing, accommodation and medical care, have long been provided free of charge by the government, the Legislative Yuan has decided that the government will also pay the NHI premium for inmates. Seeing this from a different angle, it merely replaces the medical fees paid by the prison for inmates with the NHI premium also paid by the government for inmates.