Deputy Nguyen Thi Le, Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee , at the NA working session
The implementation of social insurance policies and regimes and the Resolution No. 68/2013/QH13 on promoting the implementation of policies and laws on health insurance, towards universal health insurance in 2019-2020, management and use of the Social Insurance Fund in 2020, and the Health Insurance Fund in 2020 were discussed by the National Assembly on October 27.
Deputies all said that social insurance and health insurance play a significant pillar of the country's social security, and a basic safety net in ensuring citizenship, especially during the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic. However, they fretted about the increase in beneficiaries of one-time social insurance; therefore, they proposed shortening the mandatory period of social insurance contribution.
A piece of remarkable information in the Government's report is that the number of people participating in compulsory social insurance by the end of 2020 is over 15 million people, a decrease of 153,092 people (equivalent to 1 percent) compared to 2019. This is the first year that the number of people participating in compulsory social insurance has been reduced compared to the previous year.
Deputies pointed out the culprit of the decrease in insurance participants is the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic which has led to the shutter of production and business establishments and increased unemployed employees who refused to buy compulsory insurance because they couldn’t afford one or simply don’t want to pay the premiums. Another reason is that the number of insurance buyers receiving one-time social insurance payments continues to increase.
Revealing experiences on pilot implementation of Resolution 54 of the National Assembly on piloting specific mechanisms and policies for the development of Ho Chi Minh City, deputy Nguyen Thi Le, Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee cum Chairwoman of the municipal People's Council said that after nearly four years of implementation, until now, the Resolution 54 has helped the city to be more proactive in converting rice land from 10 hectares or more to suit with the planning.
Moreover, the city can decide investment policy with group A projects using the city budget in accordance with the Law on Public Investment (five projects have been transferred) based on the Resolution 54. The city also submitted its proposal to the National Assembly Standing Committee for a pilot increase of tax rates and environmental protection tariffs.
The southern largest city also issued a resolution on a collection of industrial wastewater discharges for environment protection; subsequently, the city has collected VND48,230 billion (US$2,115,882) instead of VND8 billion like prior.
