VN to Spend VND 2,380 Billion for Healthcare Insurance

Vietnam plans to spend some VND 2,381 billion this year to support more than six million near-poor people to purchase health insurance cards, said Pham Luong Son from the Vietnam Social Insurance.

 

Official statistics show that Vietnam has some 1,530,295 near-poor households.

 

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung recently decided to raise the support rate for health insurance cards from 50 percent up to 70 percent for the near-poor households.

 

With the additional 20 percent, the number of households to join health insurance will surely increase, said Mr. Son.

 

Under the Law on Health Insurance, 100 percent population shall be compulsory to join health insurance. To fulfill this task, the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with other ministries and agencies, designed a development plan for the 2011- 2015 period and 2020.

 

The plan aims to raise the number of insured to more than 75 percent by 2015 and about 85 percent by 2020. That would create stable financial resources to provide people with health care in an equitable and efficient way.

In detail, the plan would see 50 percent of near-poor people receive health insurance by 2015 and 79 percent in 2020. The rate among students will be 100 percent and middle-income households 40 percent in 2015 and 65 percent in 2020 while for labourers it will be 75 percent in 2015 and 90 percent in 2020.

 

By the end of last year, up to 63.7 percent of the population signed up for health insurance. Of this number, 14 million are from poor and ethnic minority groups while 10 million are children under six and other beneficiaries.

 

Around 74 percent of farmers and tradecraft villagers have not purchased health insurance cards. The rate is 49 percent among workers at enterprises and 75 percent among near-poor groups.