At the conference
He made the statement this morning at a conference held in Hanoi by the Vietnam Social Security to provide information on health insurance policies.
Chairing the conference, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security Dao Viet Anh said that on June 16, 2009, the Prime Minister issued the Decision No. 823 on taking the date of July 1 every year as ‘Vietnam Health Insurance Day’.
Over the past time, the Health Insurance Fund has created the main financial source and made a significant contribution to the medical examination and treatment covered by health insurance in our country.
One of the important achievements of the health insurance policy is that the percentage of people participating in health insurance has grown dramatically over the years. Mr. Dao Viet Anh said that from 2009 to 2015, health insurance coverage reached 57 percent and 74.7 percent of the population respectively; however, by the end of 2021, health insurance coverage has reached about 91 percent of the population.
The Deputy Director of Vietnam Social Security also said that on average, each year, about 180 million health-insured patients are enjoying their benefits. In the year 2020-2021, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Health Insurance Fund and the State budget have contributed significantly to the remedial work and the prevention of the Covid-19 epidemic, continuing to affirm the pivotal role of the national social security system.
The sector aims that all people will buy health insurance, of which, by the end of this year, striving to reach about 92 percent.
According to Mr. Tran Quoc Tuy from Vietnam Social Security, from 2017 to 2020, the number of people participating in health insurance increased by more than 2 million people, an average increase of about 3 percent a year.
However, from 2021 the number of people participating in health insurance has reduced drastically due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the policy of buying health insurance cards for people living in communes in ethnic minority groups and mountainous areas in the 2021-2025 period according to the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 861 dated June 4, 2021, and people living in poor districts, communes with special difficulties in flatlands, coastal areas and islands from 2021 to 2025 according to the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 353/2022 dated March 15, 2022.
Specifically, the number of people participating in health insurance decreased sharply in some localities. For instance, the Central Highlands Province of Dak Lak decreased by 225,500 people, the Mekong Delta provinces of Soc Trang and Tra Vinh decreased by 309,500 people and 243,600 people respectively and the Northern provinces of Thanh Hoa and Son La decreased by 183,300 people and 180,000 people respectively.
In order to create conditions for people to reduce difficulties, maintain a sustainable health insurance policy, and contribute to fulfilling the target of 98 percent of ethnic minority groups participating in health insurance by 2025 according to Resolution No. 88/2019 on November 18, 2019, of the National Assembly approving the master plan for socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for the period of 2021-2030, the Vietnam Social Security has proposed the Prime Minister, the NA Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, and the Ministry of Planning and Investment consider continuing to have a policy of paying and supporting health insurance premiums for people escaping from poor districts and extremely difficult communes in low lying areas, coastal areas, and islands in the 2021-2025 period.
Up to now, about 2.65 million people out of 3.1 million people have not yet bought health insurance.
Regarding this matter, Mr. Dao Viet Anh said that the Vietnam Social Security has reported to the Prime Minister. Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh has directed that the Ministry of needs to coordinate with the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs and the Ministry of Finance and relevant agencies to study and propose specific policies to provide support in accordance with the law on health insurance and relevant regulations. These bodies will send their reports to competent authorities for consideration.
In order to create conditions for people to reduce difficulties, and continue to develop health insurance participants, toward the goal of universal health insurance, the Vietnam Social Security proposed to add participants to compulsory health insurance for workers, employees, employers, and executive managers of a cooperative without salary, owners of individual business households.
At the same time, it is proposed to increase the level of support for paying health insurance premiums from the budget for some subjects such as students, agricultural - forestry - fishery - salt production households with average living standards from 30 percent to 50 percent of the health insurance premium.
