Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌) yesterday said the ministry is supportive of a suggestion by legislators to increase the childbirth subsidy under the national pension insurance program from a one-month premium to two months.
Chiang made the remark at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, in which legislators across party lines called for better support to be provided to women under the national pension insurance program when they give birth.
“People on the national pension insurance program are usually unemployed and require more support, but instead they receive less,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Hui-chen (江惠貞) said. “I hope we can solve this last piece of the puzzle.”
Employed women covered by the National Labor Insurance or Civil Servant and Teacher Insurance programs are guaranteed two months’ salary as a childbirth subsidy.
As women covered by other social insurance programs receive childbirth subsidies equivalent to two months’ salary, increasing the childbirth subsidy for women on the national pension insurance program would maintain balance between the different programs, Chiang Been-huang said, adding that the move would also encourage an increase in the birth rate, and as such the ministry supports the suggestion.
However, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Chien-kuo’s (劉建國) suggestion that women who miscarry should also receive a two-month subsidy, Chiang Been-huang said the ministry would not support such a plan, because no other social insurance program has a similar policy.
About 3.6 million people are covered by the national pension insurance program, Department of Social Insurance Director Chu Tong-kuang (曲同光) said, adding that about 18,000 women in the program apply for childbirth subsidies every year.
If the change is passed by legislators and promulgated by the president, it could go into effect as early as next year, the ministry said.
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