HÀ NỘI — Health insurance is compulsory under Vietnamese law - having health insurance is in everyone’s best interests and is everyone’s responsibility, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc said. His made his comments while chairing a national teleconference on stepping up the implementation of health insurance for all people on June 3, 2016.
He spoke highly of the strong determination of ministries, sectors and localities to increase the health insurance coverage rate to 90 percent of the total population by 2020, from 76.5 percent in 2015.
But he noted several localities still have less than 75 percent of their population covered by health insurance. The application of information technology in health checkups and treatment, and in administrative procedures, remains slow. Prices of medical services are sometimes counted incorrectly, affecting the quality of services.
To reach 90 percent coverage, the Government leader asked Việt Nam Social Insurance (VSI) to propose measures and policies on expanding health insurance coverage to the Government, the Prime Minister, and relevant ministries.
The VSI was requested to coordinate with medical clinics nationwide to facilitate health checkups, treatment, and insurance payments.
He assigned the Health Ministry to steer hospitals and medical clinics to improve the quality of health checkups and treatment, and to avoid discriminating against health insurance card holders.
The health sector will be required to step up administrative procedure reform - and to improve the payment process for hospital fees.
The PM also asked People’s Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities to include the rate of health insurance participation in their annual and five-year socioeconomic development goals, and to take responsibility for fulfilling the target before the Government does so.
He urged the Finance Ministry to renew State budget spending on health, to support health insurance subscribers.
The Ministry of Education and Training was also requested to ensure 100 percent of students get health insurance by 2017. And the ministries of Defence and Public Security were asked to help all armed officers and soldiers get health insurance by 2018.
“A civilised society and a developed country need a good health insurance system,” the leader said.
Speaking at the teleconference, Health Minister Nguyễn Thị Kim Tiến said that to increase the participation rate and the attractiveness of health insurance, the ministry has improved the quality of medical checkups and treatment, reduced hospital overload and punished more than 7,000 health workers who behaved badly towards patients.— VNS