Although nine out of 10 office workers in the country have heard of the second-generation National Health Insurance plan, a large majority do not understand it, a survey released recently by a job bank showed.
A total of 59 percent of employees who responded to the 360D job bank poll said they did not know the difference between the current system and the proposed new one.
Among employers, 85 percent of the 98 companies covered in the poll were not clear what the new system entails or did not understand it at all, but 62 percent said they expected the new system to increase their premium burden.
The proposed plan, designed to increase revenues for the nation’s ailing compulsory health insurance program, has proved controversial, prompting the government to postpone its implementation to early next year.
Under the new program, regular premium rates will be reduced from 5.17 percent to 4.91 percent, the calculation based on the monthly salaries of insured individuals up to a certain limit.
However, a supplementary premium of 2 percent will be charged on income additional to regular salaries, such as earnings from part-time jobs, bonuses and subsidies.
Asked about the supplementary premium, 44 percent of respondents said they felt they were being exploited, but there was nothing they could do about it, while 38 percent said they were against it and wanted current rates to remain.
Another 18 percent were in favor of it, saying it was reasonable for those who earned more to pay more in premiums.
The survey was conducted from March 20 to Monday, with 1,341 valid responses. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift