How to view the issue of improving the social security system

How to improve the social security system? How to improve the social security system? The social security system is imperfect

Let’s start with the fact that 41 million people enjoy “minimum living security”

How to look at improving the society Security system issues

"Dibao" is the abbreviation of the minimum living security system. It became one of the hot topics discussed by representatives and committee members at the 2007 National Two Sessions. As early as 1993, the party and the government began the pilot project of the urban "ministry living allowance" system, and by 1999 it covered cities and towns across the country. In 2007, the central government decided to establish a rural “subsistence allowance” system nationwide. On August 13, the State Council issued a notice on establishing a rural minimum living security system nationwide, setting forth clear requirements for the implementation of the rural minimum living security system. As of the end of May, more than 41 million people across the country enjoyed "subsistence allowances", effectively ensuring the basic living standards of poor residents in urban and rural areas. The establishment and improvement of the "subsistence allowance" system reflects the achievements of my country's social security system construction from one aspect. General Secretary Hu Jintao pointed out at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that establishing and improving a social security system that is compatible with the level of economic development is a practical need to protect people's lives and an inevitable requirement for advancing reform and development and maintaining social harmony and stability. Recently, the important speech on June 25 clearly emphasized the need to basically establish a social security system covering urban and rural residents. These have pointed out the direction for further improving our country's social security system.

Why should we establish and improve the social security system?

Mencius said: "I am old and old, and I am in harmony with people's oldness; young and I am young, and I am in harmony with people's youngness." "Book of Rites? Liyun" writes: "Let the old have their end, and the strong will be strong. "Everyone is familiar with these ancient sayings, which express the ancients' longing for social harmony and reflect the ancients' expectations for a good life security."

Generally speaking, the social security system refers to the system and measures used by the state and society to provide material assistance to social members in difficulty and guarantee their basic life. It is the product of the development of productive forces to a certain stage and an important symbol of social progress. In the 1880s, the world's first complete social security system was established in Germany. After more than 100 years of development, it has become an indispensable social and economic system in modern countries.

In our country, although the concept of "social security" was proposed relatively late, the systems and institutions that have emerged in history for disaster relief and famine preparedness, poverty alleviation, and child care have actually played the role of social security. Function. After the founding of New China, we established a social security system that matched the planned economy, but the security level at that time was relatively low and the efficiency was not high. After the reform and opening up, especially after the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established the reform goal of the socialist market economic system, we began to explore and establish a sound social security system that is compatible with the market economy, and successively established medical insurance, pension insurance, unemployment insurance and Work-related injury insurance and other systems.

The practice of 29 years of reform and opening up has proved that establishing and improving the social security system is an important part of the development of my country's social undertakings and plays an irreplaceable and important role in achieving scientific development and promoting social harmony. To sum up, the social security system has the following four functions.

First, the role of "safety net". Social security is where people's safety lies. The core function of the social security system is to ensure that the people's basic income and basic medical care are not affected when they are old, unemployed, sick, work-related injuries, or have children, and that people who have no income, low income, and those who suffer from various unexpected disasters have a source of livelihood. , meet their basic survival needs, relieve their worries, and build a "safety net" for the people.

The second is the role of "balancer". The social security system has the function of income redistribution, regulating part of the income of middle- and high-income groups, improving the security standards of the lowest-income group, reducing poverty, appropriately narrowing the income gap between different members of society, and keeping it at a moderate level. In this way, it can not only narrow the current gap between urban and rural areas, regions and social members in our country to a certain extent, promote social fairness and justice, but also increase the overall welfare level of society.

The third is the role of "booster". A perfect social security system is conducive to improving the quality of workers themselves, promoting the orderly flow of labor force, stimulating the vitality of our country's economy to a certain extent, promoting faster economic development, and avoiding social problems. Excessive expansion of consumption will lead to a more reasonable consumption structure and balance the total amount of social supply and demand, which will help prevent fluctuations in economic development and achieve better development.

The fourth is the role of "stabilizer". A sound social security system can establish various risk protection measures for workers, help them eliminate and resist various market risks, avoid a series of conflicts caused by the lack of basic security in life, and thus maintain social stability. In addition, actively encouraging people who get rich first to be enthusiastic about social welfare and helping those in need can also harmonize the relationship between all social strata, so that different strata of society can live in harmony and make progress together.

How do you view the achievements and challenges faced by the construction of my country’s social security system?

“Pay ten yuan and receive medical treatment for a year!” This is a vivid description of the new rural cooperative medical system by many farmers. Beginning in January 2003, the new rural cooperative medical system began to be piloted in some areas across the country. The main approach of this system is to focus on overall planning for major illnesses and give appropriate consideration to minor illnesses. As long as individual farmers pay 10 yuan, they can enjoy dual subsidies from the central and local finances, and can receive up to tens of thousands of yuan in subsidies. As of the end of March 2007, 2,319 counties (cities, districts) in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country had carried out pilot work, accounting for 81.03% of the country's total. 685 million farmers participated in rural cooperative medical care, accounting for nearly 80% of the country's agricultural population. . It is expected that by the end of 2008, a new rural cooperative medical system will be basically established in the vast majority of rural areas in my country.

The implementation and promotion of the new rural cooperative medical system is a silhouette of the rapid development of my country's social security undertakings. After long-term efforts, my country's social security has made great progress, and the overall framework of the social security system has been initially formed, playing an increasingly important role in promoting reform, development and stability.

In terms of social insurance, the coverage of pensions, medical care, unemployment, work-related injuries, maternity, etc. has continued to expand, and the support capacity of social security funds has gradually increased. In recent years, the number of people covered by social insurance has increased by about 6 per year, and the income of social security funds has increased by about 20 per year. As of the end of 2006, the number of people insured in basic pension, medical, unemployment, work-related injury and maternity insurance nationwide were 187.66 million, 157.32 million, 111.87 million, 102.68 million and 64.59 million respectively. The total revenue of the five social security funds was 862.6 billion yuan, expenditure was 647.2 billion yuan, and total accumulation was 823.9 billion yuan. The number of people participating in rural pension insurance nationwide has reached 53.74 million, with an accumulated fund of 35.4 billion yuan.

In terms of social assistance, we have initially established a system based on urban subsistence allowances, rural five-guarantee assistance, assistance to rural extremely poor households, and assistance to disaster victims, supplemented by temporary assistance, and special assistance related to medical care, education, housing, and justice. The urban and rural social assistance system framework is connected, with policy preferences and social mutual assistance supporting each other. As of the end of 2006, 22.409 million people in cities and 15.091 million people in rural areas across the country were included in the "ministry allowance", and their basic lives were guaranteed; 12.498 million farmers and 856,000 urban residents respectively benefited from medical assistance. In places where rural "subsistence allowance" work has not been carried out, 7.758 million people have received subsidies for extremely poor households. In terms of social welfare and charity, a social welfare service system has been initially formed that is based on the family, supported by the community, supplemented by support institutions, and focused on the elderly, disabled people and orphans. Charity has entered a new stage of comprehensive promotion by the government. As of the end of 2006, there were 42,000 residential welfare units nationwide with 1.871 million beds, and 1.47 million people including the elderly, disabled, and orphans were adopted. Nationwide, 33,000 regular social donation work sites and charity supermarkets have been established nationwide, accepting donations worth approximately 10 billion yuan.

However, objectively speaking, my country's current social security system is still far from perfect. There are a series of problems that need to be solved, such as narrow coverage, low security levels, insufficient laws, and lax supervision and law enforcement.

For example, basic pension insurance, medical insurance, etc. are mainly targeted at urban residents. Even in cities and towns, many residents are still excluded from the scope of social security. By the end of 2006, employees covered by my country's urban basic pension insurance and medical insurance accounted for only 66.3% and 55.6% of urban employed persons respectively. Moreover, in the long run, my country's social security system will also be under tremendous pressure from three aspects. First, the aging of the population has made issues such as elderly care, medical care, and social services more prominent. At present, the proportion of the elderly population over 60 years old in my country has exceeded 11% of the total population, and it is expected that the proportion will rise to 16% by 2020, reaching 240 million people. Our country's pension insurance has long been a pay-as-you-go system, with no accumulation funds set aside. The early arrival of aging means "getting old before getting rich." my country's social security system is facing many challenges such as heavy pension burden, difficulty in raising funds, and high medical expenses. Second, the increasing diversification of employment methods has made the issue of expanding social security coverage more prominent. In recent years, my country's employment pattern has undergone significant changes. More than half of the employees nationwide work in non-public enterprises, and the proportion is even higher in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other provinces. However, for a long time, a considerable number of non-public employees have not enjoyed social security. Under the current circumstances, how to include these people into the coverage of social security is a problem that we must study and solve.

Third, the accelerated urbanization process has brought new problems to the social security system. By the end of 2006, my country's urban population had reached 577.06 million. In the next 15 years, urbanization will enter a period of rapid development, and the urban population will increase by an average of 13 million people per year. These new urban populations urgently need to be included in the social security system. In addition, there are currently more than 40 million landless farmers, and more than 100 million farmers move to cities to work every year. They have become an important force in the industrial army. However, my country's employment and social security systems are mainly designed and implemented for the urban population. How to adapt to the needs of hundreds of millions of rural migrant laborers in the process of urbanization is a major issue.

How to gradually establish a social security system covering urban and rural residents?

In July 2007, the State Council launched the pilot program of basic medical insurance for urban residents, which will be fully rolled out within three years. More than 200 million urban primary and secondary school students, children and other non-employed urban residents will be able to Enjoy critical illness medical insurance. The implementation and promotion of the pilot program of basic medical insurance for urban residents means that the coverage of urban medical insurance in my country has been further expanded and an important step has been taken towards the goal of realizing medical insurance for all urban residents.

The Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that by 2020, a social security system covering urban and rural residents that connects social insurance, social assistance, social welfare, and charity will be basically established. Recently, General Secretary Hu Jintao put forward the goals and tasks of basically establishing a social security system covering urban and rural residents in his important speech on June 25. "Covering urban and rural residents" is a new development goal proposed by our party for the construction of my country's social security system based on a scientific analysis of my country's economic and social development level in response to the requirements of building a harmonious society.

It should be said that there are currently many favorable conditions to achieve this development goal. After 29 years of reform and opening up, by the end of 2006, my country's economic aggregate exceeded 20 trillion yuan, and the national fiscal revenue was nearly 4 trillion yuan, which laid a solid material foundation for us to improve the social security system. But to be honest, establishing a social security system covering urban and rural residents is an arduous task with a long way to go. It requires more efforts from the whole society and must give full play to the roles of the government, society, market and other aspects.

From the perspective of other countries in the world, establishing a basic social security system is an unshirkable responsibility of the government. In the process of improving my country's social security system, the government must first play a leading role. Based on my country's basic national conditions and actual economic and social development, we will actively learn from the development experience of other countries in the world, explore a social security development model with Chinese characteristics, do our best and within our capabilities, and gradually achieve the development goal of covering urban and rural residents. The first is to adjust the structure of fiscal expenditures, establish a standardized social security budget system, and further increase the proportion of social security expenditures.

At present, my country's fiscal investment in this area is relatively small. The proportion in 2006 was less than 13%, which is lower than that of many countries. The second is scientific planning to further expand the coverage of the social security system. Adapt to the characteristics of an aging population, diversified employment methods, and accelerated urbanization, improve the existing security system, and include people who should be included but are not included in a planned manner to truly realize "protection for everyone who deserves it"; explore new System construction, adding new security projects for different groups, such as establishing a social security system and rural pension insurance system that meet the characteristics of migrant workers. The third is to strengthen the raising and supervision of social security funds. Through various methods, we actively guide insured persons to pay social insurance premiums, encourage social donations, expand the channels for raising social security funds, and continue to make the national social security fund bigger and stronger. At the same time, we must further strengthen the supervision of social security funds. The Shanghai Social Security Fund case in 2006 and the National Audit Office’s discovery of more than 7 billion yuan in irregularities in provincial social security funds exposed problems in fund supervision. It is necessary to further enhance the overall coordination level of the fund, establish and improve various systems, promote openness and transparency of fund management, and ensure the safe operation of the fund.

To improve the social security system, we must also fully mobilize all aspects of society. Enterprises must effectively abide by relevant laws and regulations, pay various social insurance premiums for employees on time and in full, increase pension accumulation year by year, and establish and improve collective welfare consultation mechanisms. Social organizations and service agencies must take active actions to play a role in social assistance, poverty relief, charity services, etc.; families and individuals must pay various social insurance fees in accordance with the law, perform functions such as support, self-help, and mutual aid, and promote the formation of solidarity. A social atmosphere of mutual help and harmony.

To improve the social security system, we must also actively play the supplementary role of commercial insurance. Although commercial insurance is an economic behavior and is different from the social security system whose purpose is to protect basic life, it has similarities with the social security system in reducing risks, compensating losses, ensuring life, and stabilizing society. In particular, the level of commercial insurance coverage can be high or low. The more insurance you buy, the more benefits you will get. It can meet people's higher-level and diversified social security needs and is conducive to improving the overall level of social security in our country. Therefore, we must vigorously develop commercial insurance, improve life insurance, supplementary medical insurance, personal accident insurance and other insurance types, and provide more and better services to the people.

In addition, it is necessary to improve the legal system of the social security system, speed up the promulgation of social insurance law, social assistance law, charity law and other laws, and formulate pension insurance regulations, medical insurance regulations, social security fund management regulations and other regulations. At the same time, we must strictly enforce the law, and in accordance with the "Labor Law" and other relevant laws and regulations, actively carry out supervision and law enforcement in regulating enterprise employment, cleaning up social insurance relationships, etc., improve the efficiency and quality of social security work, and intensify the crackdown on illegal activities.