The National Health Insurance Administration yesterday announced that people can apply for new National Health Insurance (NHI) program cards at household registration offices in 19 cities and counties.
“Statistics show that approximately 440,000 identification cards and 660,000 NHI cards are lost each year, with about 300,000 people losing both yearly,” Underwriting Division official Wu Hsin (吳昕) said.
Wu said that in the past, people who lost both credentials had to go to a household registration office to get a replacement identification card and an agency office to get a new NHI card, which was a waste of time and money.
To address the problem, the agency and the Ministry of the Interior’s Department of Household Registration launched a cross-agency information platform, through which a household registration office can forward NHI card information to the administration.
“The new policy is expected to save an applicant 30 minutes and NT$50 in transportation expenses,” Wu said.
Meanwhile, a number of new policies drawn up by the Food and Drug Administration are to take effect today.
One of them targets genetically modified (GM) foods, requiring producers of food products with more than 3 percent GM ingredients to label the items either as “genetically modified” or “containing genetically modified content.”
Previously, the limit was 5 percent.
Sugar content notifications are to become mandatory from today. Food manufacturers have to display the total amount of sugar on labels of packaged food items.
They are also required to list each nutrient in the product and its percentage of the recommended daily intake.
Labels must also notify consumers of the possible presence of the six most serious types of food allergens.
The FDA also recommends that food producers notify consumers in the nutrition table if a product might contain goat milk, fish, shellfish, cephalopods, nuts, gluten-containing grains, soybean and kiwifruit.
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