Top legislature urges enhancement of social insurance regulations

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has called for more sound, scientific regulations for the nation's social insurance system after it sent an inspection team to review the implementation of the Social Insurance Law this summer.

The team, consisting of 19 people, toured 16 cities and prefectures in six provinces from June to July, including Shanghai and the provinces of Heilongjiang and Guangdong, to review the social insurance law's implementation.

The team also authorized six provincial NPC standing committees in provincial-level regions such as Zhejiang and Chongqing to review the law's implementation over that period.

The inspection team noted not only the progress the nation has made in perfecting the social insurance system, but also identified several problems, according to the latest report it submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for review on Tuesday.

The report said that China has seen the social insurance of pension, work-related injuries, unemployment and childbirth covering an increasing number of people in recent years. By the end of last year, China had established the world's largest social insurance net, with just over 1 billion people covered by basic pension insurance, about 1.3 billion by basic healthcare insurance and roughly 240 million by unemployment insurance.

The nation has also tightened supervision over the use of social insurance funds to prevent fraud and appropriation. According to the report, the National Healthcare Security Administration reviewed 802,000 pharmaceutical institutes last year and clawed back about 18.7 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) of healthcare insurance-related funds.

However, the inspection team noted some issues such as less social insurance coverage offered by flexible-work enterprises and companies being in arrears with their employees' insurance.

The team called on the government to create more scientific, top-down mechanisms and unified standards of social insurance implementation, as people may encounter problems paying social insurance or receiving pensions due to the different policies put in place by local authorities.

More lectures and promotional campaigns should be organized for employers, college students, migrant workers and the flexibly employed to help raise their awareness about social insurance, and more legal approaches should be taken to protect their rights, the report said.

The team also urged the government to enhance supervision over the use of social insurance funds to boost the security and sustainability of related funding. It suggested launching strict crackdowns on fraud or appropriations of social insurance funds and strengthening the punishment for perpetrators.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress approved the Social Insurance Law in 2010, with several articles being amended in 2018.