Chiayi County mayoral race heats up as candidates target healthcare and social welfare voters

With the year-end Chiayi County Magistrate election drawing closer, the race is heating up as candidates continuously roll out their policy proposals. Tsai Yi-yu, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate for Chiayi County Magistrate and incumbent legislator, officially unveiled his core medical and social welfare policy blueprint today (the 1st), highlighting a comprehensive all-generation care network covering both the elderly and the young. On the other hand, independent candidate for Chiayi County Magistrate and incumbent Puzi Mayor Wu Pin-jui struck back by launching a welfare platform promising to immediately promote health insurance fee subsidies for residents aged 65 and above if successfully elected. Both camps making moves in the medical and social welfare sectors not only highlights the urgent pressure Chiayi County faces under aging demographics and long-term care demands, but also brings the policy debate in this mayoral race to a white-hot stage ahead of schedule.

Chiayi County has long faced severe demographic structure challenges. According to statistical data from the Department of Civil Registration under the Ministry of the Interior, Chiayi County's aging index consistently ranks near the top among all cities and counties in Taiwan, with the proportion of the elderly population aged 65 and above having long surpassed 20 percent, officially entering the super-aged society defined by the World Health Organization. Amid the harsh reality of severe out-migration of the middle-aged and young labor force striving elsewhere, properly caring for the elderly remaining in their hometowns and easing the childcare burdens of sandwiched double-income families have consistently been the core issues of greatest concern to the residents of Chiayi County. Because of this, both DPP-nominated Tsai Yi-yu and independent Puzi Mayor Wu Pin-jui have coincidentally focused their campaign axes on healthcare and social welfare, attempting to win the recognition and support of county residents through concrete policy commitments.

Regarding the medical and social welfare policies unveiled this time, Tsai Yi-yu emphasized that their core concept lies in an "all-generation care network," attempting to break away from past piecemeal welfare distributions that merely treated symptoms rather than root causes, and instead construct a comprehensive and systematic support system from the cradle to the grave. In Chiayi County, where medical resources are relatively scarce, the inconvenience of medical access for residents in remote areas has long been a chronic problem. Tsai Yi-yu proposed strengthening the grassroots medical network and increasing the coverage of telemedicine and mobile medical vehicles, hoping to narrow the urban-rural gap and allow medical resources to reach deep into mountain and coastal townships. In terms of social welfare, he focused on expanding public childcare and increasing long-term care stations and adult day care centers, enabling young people to dare to have children and be capable of raising them, while allowing the elderly to receive dignified and proper care within familiar communities, thereby shaping a sustainable environment of generational well-being.

On the other hand, Puzi Mayor Wu Pin-jui, who chose to run as an independent, took the practical experience of a grassroots administrative head as her starting point, directly targeting the most direct economic burdens of the elderly to make her pledge. Wu Pin-jui stated that if she is successfully elected Chiayi County Magistrate, she will make the most practical allocation of financial resources for elderly care and promote a health insurance fee subsidy policy for all county residents aged 65 and above. For many elderly people without fixed incomes, although the monthly health insurance premium is not an astronomical sum, it accumulates into a fixed expense over time; if the county government can budget for comprehensive subsidies, it will substantially reduce the economic pressure on the elderly and their children. This policy strikes directly at the pain points of grassroots public opinion, demonstrating the strong ambition of the independent candidate to break through the cracks between the blue and green camps by playing the livelihood welfare card.

As can be seen from the policy clash between the two candidates, this term's Chiayi County Magistrate election has substantially entered a policy competition stage of "comparing policies and striving over details." Chiayi County has a vast territory and an elongated terrain, with enormous geographic differences among plains, mountainous areas, and coastal zones, making the allocation of medical and social welfare resources a major test. Whether it is the comprehensive care network proposed by Tsai Yi-yu or the elderly health insurance fee subsidy focused on by Wu Pin-jui, both must face the realistic test of Chiayi County's limited fiscal autonomy. The key to the future development of the campaign lies not only in whose slogan sounds more appealing, but in who can present concrete and feasible financial planning and execution schedules to truly convince voters to cast their sacred ballots. As the campaign activities deepen, both sides are expected to spark even more debates on social welfare and medical issues, bringing deeper discussions to the future governance direction of Chiayi County.

(Fact source: Central News Agency)