Paying social security in the past was a dead letter. Is it the same as now

No, it's an electronic social security card now.

Electronic social security card is an effective electronic certificate for social security card online application, which has one-to-one correspondence with the entity social security card and is the only mapping. Issued by the National Social Security Card Platform and managed by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

The electronic social security card, like the entity social security card, is unified and universal in the whole country, and has the functions of identification, information recording, self-inquiry, medical insurance settlement, payment and treatment collection, financial payment and so on.