Pilot farmers' occupational accident insurance prioritizes injury over disease; lawmakers urge faster inclusion of chronic occupational diseases
A month ago, farmers' occupational accident insurance was formally approved by the Executive Yuan, and will be piloted first under a single tier of "monthly insured amount of 10,200 yuan, premium rate 0.23%", with priority given to promoting "agricultural occupational injury" insurance. However, the principle of "injury before disease" (injury refers to "occupational injury", disease refers to "chronic occupational disease") faced many challenges today (the 10th) at the Legislative Yuan's Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee; many lawmakers believe that farmers suffer mostly from chronic occupational diseases, and that clear relevant recognition standards still need to be further established.
"Occupational injury" has relatively clear cause and effect, so it is being launched first
At present, farmers' health insurance has only three benefit items: maternity benefit, physical and mental disability benefit, and funeral allowance; after the farmers' occupational accident insurance is launched in the future, new items such as injury and illness benefit, disability benefit, death benefit, and medical benefit will be added, and priority will be given to "injury before disease", first piloting "occupational injury" occupational accidents with relatively clear cause and effect.
Chen Chi-chung, deputy minister of the Council of Agriculture, said that the farmers' occupational accident insurance is currently expected to be piloted at the end of the year, adopting a "voluntary enrollment" method, and all 1.16 million farmers with farmers' insurance status are eligible to enroll; the current plan is to pilot it for three to five years, and after the pilot period ends, it will be promoted comprehensively, without ruling out mandatory enrollment.
Lawmakers: Agricultural "occupational diseases" are not protected
At present, the Council of Agriculture plans to recognize farmers' occupational accidents under "injury before disease", but Kuomintang lawmaker Hsu Shu-hua questioned that in the provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, occupational injury and occupational disease are both explicitly listed, "if there is no occupational disease benefit, can it be called agricultural occupational insurance?"
Kuomintang lawmaker Wang Yu-min further pointed out that, based on current Bureau of Labor Insurance data, from 2005 to 2016 occupational accident benefits in the labor insurance field of agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry were all quite low, "the number of occupational disease benefit cases was only 123." Converted, that is an average of only ten benefit cases per year, "is it because farmers have no occupational diseases? Or is occupational disease recognition very strict, so farmers cannot get the benefits they deserve?"
Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Tsai Pei-hui also said that occupational injuries are often short-term, immediate injuries, but for farmers, the most serious occupational accident may be "occupational disease", yet recognition of farming occupational diseases is indeed difficult, "when an elderly farmer has an elbow injury, some brush it off as old age."
Now the Council of Agriculture intends to pilot farmers' occupational accident insurance under "injury before disease", but Wang Yu-min believes that cases of farmers' chronic occupational disease injuries may be more numerous than cases of acute occupational injuries; in particular, farmers apply pesticides over the long term, and pesticides may accumulate chronically in the body, causing liver disease, "will this be included in occupational accident benefit items when farmers' occupational accident insurance is launched in the future?"
