The increase in the minimum monthly wage yesterday is to be accompanied by a slight rise in the National Health Insurance (NHI) premiums, which is expected to affect about 2.59 million people, the NHI Administration announced yesterday.
The agency made the announcement after the Ministry of Labor raised the nation’s minimum monthly wage from NT$19,047 to NT$19,273 (US$634 to US$641), the second increase this year.
Under the National Health Insurance Act (全民健康保險法), the NHI program’s minimum monthly premium is pegged to the statutory minimum monthly wage and must be revised in accordance with any adjustments to the minimum wage standard.
The NHI Administration’s Underwriting Division Chief Yeh Feng-ming (葉逢明) said yesterday’s minimum wage rise could see about 2.59 million Taiwanese workers’ monthly NHI premiums increase by NT$3, which together with government and employee contributions, was expected to increase NHI revenue by NT$270 million a year.
In addition, the agency also revised the program’s grading table of the insured payroll-related amount, which now divides the salaries of insured individuals into 52 different levels, down from 53, Yeh said.
Yeh said that under the revision, the insured salary of village and borough wardens would rise from NT$30,300 to NT$31,800, which would result in a NT$22 increase in the monthly premium for about 52,000 people.
About 400 self-employed professionals would have their insured salary climb from NT$22,800 to NT$24,000, paying an additional NT$59 each month, Yeh said.
In other news, the National Poison Center yesterday released a 13-minute animated film to raise awareness among parents about the accidental poisoning of toddlers and young children.
The film, titled Berney’s Adventures (柏柏的冒險), features the nine most common and dangerous sources of accidental poisoning of children depicted through the story of a three-year-old boy who is tempted to explore the toxic substances within the family home.
The short animation took the center and the Foundation for Poison Control nearly one year to make and comes with multiple subtitle choices, including English, Vietnamese, Thai and Indonesian.
According to the center, of the more than 20,000 children aged six and under who suffered from accidental poisoning over the past two decades, 36 percent were poisoned by sleeping pills, antipsychotics and other prescription drugs; 20 percent by batteries and other everyday materials; 11 percent by rat poisons and other common household poisons; and 8 percent by cosmetics, personal hygiene products and household cleaners.
“Accidental poisoning has been the main cause of childhood illnesses and deaths in the country because children are vulnerable,” the center said.
“We hope the film can teach parents some simple poison prevention measures and teach them the importance of their role in safeguarding the safety of their children,” it said.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods