Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the Conference

Dear comrades,

Today, I highly welcome Vietnam Social Security to organize this important online conference for us to discuss 3 contents, including: Evaluation, looking back on the results of 25 years of implementation of social insurance and health insurance policies; consulting about solutions to implement Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW of the Central Committee of the Party Central Committee on social insurance policy reform and discussing, solving and performing the tasks of the social insurance industry in 2020.

First of all, on behalf of the Party and State leaders, I wish that all comrades, delegates and all the social insurance officials, public servants and employees are healthy and happy to contribute to the path of social security in general and especially to the success of the social insurance career of our country in the future.

Dear comrades,

In general, there are many contents about social security but in the field of social insurance and health insurance in particular, after 25 years of establishment and development, Vietnam Social Security has played a key role in the security system, contributing to demonstrate the good nature of the regime. It is you who contributed to the encouraging achievements of social security, which are recognized by the international community.

In 2019, our GDP per capita reached over 2,800 USD, belonging to the group of low-middle-income countries in the world but the average life expectancy of Vietnamese people has reached over 73.6 years, belonging to the top groups of the world. The rate of poor households under multi-dimensional approach is less than 4%. Vietnam's human development indicators (HDI) has made progress in the middle-high group out of 189 countries.

These indicators have shown the progress of the country. And I am very pleased today to attend this conference to discuss solutions to develop the social insurance system, contributing to the development of the country.

By the way, I also want to add that, globally, the social insurance policy has existed since the end of the 19th century with many different models. In our country, immediately after gaining independence, President Ho Chi Minh and the Government issued many important decrees (Decree No. 54, Decree No. 105, etc.) related to pension, salary allowance change when workers and employees get sick, maternity, labor accidents, etc. These are the first documents on our country's social security policies. In 1961, the Government Council issued Decree 218-CP promulgating the Temporary Regulation on social insurance regimes for State workers and employees.

Entering the period of renovation and international integration, with the development of a multi-sector economy, social insurance policies have been gradually improved and expanded to different economic sectors. The Platform for national construction during the period of transition towards Socialism (1991) has set the goal of "establishing a synchronized and diversified system of social insurance and allowances...". The Platform supplemented and developed in 2001 with the concept of "Making progress and social justice in every step and every policy" has developed a bigger goal, which is "perfecting the social security system”.

The 2013 Constitution affirms the social security policies and social insurance policies in most of the provisions on basic political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights of people and all are aimed at ensuring legal rights and benefits of the people. Article 34 of the 2013 Constitution states that "Citizens have the right to be social security guaranteed." Article 59 stipulates "The State creates equality of opportunity for citizens to enjoy social welfare, developing the social security system...".

Dear comrades,

Over the past years, our Party and State have always paid attention to leading, directing, developing and implementing policies on social security and social insurance, promoting social progress and justice, considering this as both a goal and a driving force for sustainable development of the country, demonstrating the good nature of our regime.

The system of social insurance and health insurance policies has undergone more and more complete stages, which is consistent with the country's socio-economic development, clearly reflected in the resolutions of the Party congress, resolutions and Central Directives such as: Directive No. 15 on strengthening leadership for implementation of social insurance policies, Resolution No. 15 on a number of social policy issues for the period of 2012-2020, Resolution No. 21 on strengthening the Party leadership for social insurance and health insurance, especially Resolution No. 28 of the Party Central Committee on social insurance policy reform. It can be seen that the legal system, policies and guidelines of our Party on the social security system in general and social insurance have been increasingly established and developed.

After 25 years of construction and development, Vietnam Social Security with the main task assigned by the Government to organize the implementation of uniform social insurance and health insurance policies throughout the country has been making great efforts for the effective implementation of undertakings and policies on social insurance and health insurance and achieved many important results, especially are:

- The system of policies and laws on social insurance and health insurance has been increasingly completed and synchronized, consistent with the country's development process and international practices; The organizational model of the social insurance and health insurance system is increasingly being completed according to the Party's policy on reforming and streamlining the apparatus. Propaganda and dissemination of policies of social insurance and health insurance has many innovations towards professionalism and efficiency, creating obvious changes in awareness and actions of organizations and individuals on roles and responsibilities as well as the purpose and meaning of participating in social insurance and health insurance.

- The coverage of social insurance and health insurance has been increasingly expanded. By the end of 2019, the number of social insurance participants reached nearly 16 million (accounting for about 32.3% of the labor force); The number of participants in health insurance reached nearly 86 million (accounting for 90% of the population). At this rate, Vietnam has basically achieved the goal of universal health insurance and reached the target ahead of schedule compared to the goal set out in Resolution No. 21. If compared with some developed countries in the world, in order to achieve the above goal, it would take 40 to 80 years. In the meantime, we only need a quarter of a century.

- The number of beneficiaries of social insurance and health insurance regimes is constantly increasing, on average per year, tens of millions of people receive the social insurance regimes and hundreds of millions of people enjoy health insurance regimes. The payment of social insurance and health insurance regimes is made promptly; The payment method has been renewed in the direction of service to ensure benefits for workers and the people.

- The social insurance and health insurance fund has become the largest social security fund; The rate of spending from the social insurance fund is increasing; The rate of spending from the state budget for social insurance is declining, confirming the Party's right viewpoint in encouraging people to improve their capacity to ensure social security.

- Vietnam Social Security is one of the units who earned many achievements in administrative reform and information technology application with numerous outstanding results: it has reduced by 75% in the number of administrative procedures (reduced from 263 to 27 procedures). continued); has built a database and granted social insurance codes for 97 million people, making an important contribution to building a digital government, providing online public services for the whole society, etc. especially the electronic health insurance inspection system that connects 100% of medical examination and treatment facilities. Performing automatic assessment of medical examination and treatment expenses with the health insurance helped the management and use of the fund of health insurance to be made public, transparent and effective. Having this result, in addition to the contributions of the whole social insurance industry, it is thanks to the drastic, close and effective direction from the General Director.

Administrative reform, IT application, and tax payment have contributed to improving the investment environment in Vietnam. I commend officials, public servants, workers and employees of the whole Social Insurance Sector for their efforts to make the Industry one of the leading units, making an important contribution to the process of building a digital Government and providing online public services for the whole society, serving people better and better; At the same time, I also praise Mrs. Nguyen Thi Minh, General Director, for the drastic, close and effective direction in recent years.

All of these results have contributed significantly to the realization of the Party's and the State's high goals of serving and caring for the people, confirming the Party's right viewpoint in encouraging people to improve capacity to ensure social security.

Besides the regular attention and direction of the Party, the National Assembly and the Government; the support, assistance and companionship of the ministries, departments, branches and mass organizations; and the active participation of the party committees and authorities, we must also mention the active, positive and creative role of the social insurance industry. On behalf of the Government, I warmly praise and appreciate the attempts and efforts of generations of civil servants, officials and employees of the social insurance industry during the past 25 years.

Dear comrades,

Taking care of people's health, life, prosperity and fullness is a long-term career of our Party and State. The ultimate goal is to have a social security system towards the people, in accordance with international standards to create a safety network with multi-storey and multi-layer to protect all members and community. This must be thoroughly understood for our people to benefit from the revolutionary that has been led, managed and developed by our Party and State.

In order to become an important social safety net associated with socialist goals, orientation, implementation of social progress and justice, the coverage of social insurance must be wider or more specifically, all employees and dependents need a safety net. With less than 1/3 of workers participating in social insurance today, the goal is still far away, so the efforts need to be greater and we must not be careless.

According to the targets of Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW, nationwide coverage of social insurance must reach 35% of the labor force in the working age by the end of 2021; 45% by 2025; for unemployment insurance: 28% by 2021 and 35% by 2025. It shows that we must continue to strive.

Accordingly, we need to have new and creative solutions, dealing with shortcomings and limitations. The system of policies and laws must be regularly innovated and updated to conform to international regulations; Social security policies need to apply digital technology to be uniformly managed, ensuring efficiency, and reducing regular costs for organizational structure. We also need to reduce the time for social insurance payment in the coming time; thoroughly tackling the abuse and profiteering of the health insurance fund, the situation of evasion of payment of social insurance premiums and improving the coordination and information sharing between state management agencies and social insurance agencies, etc.

One issue that the social insurance industry needs to take into consideration is that according to the World Bank's business environment report announcing the results of tax and social insurance payment in 2019, we ranked 109 out of 180 countries, an increase of 22 ranks compared to 2018. The increase of social insurance has made progress but not much, therefore, we still need to improve. Meanwhile, social insurance contributions in Vietnam are high compared to the region, and the social insurance contribution rate of Vietnamese enterprises is also high in the ASEAN region.

An important thing to note is that the current development of social insurance is carried out in the context of many difficulties and challenges such as: The domestic economy is still in difficult condition, the state policy resources are limited, the income of many people is low and unstable, the rate of labor in the informal sector is high, the adjustment of some social insurance regimes through many stages creates certain unreasonments, the pressure of aging population for the social insurance system is still very high, the impact from the 4.0 industrial revolution makes rapid changes in the structure and labor relations, etc.

I want to take an example of the challenges for the social insurance industry, currently, as the situation of Covid-19 epidemic is extremely complicated, we see that the health insurance policy plays a vital role. However, although most people have health insurance, the coverage of services is low, and the cost of payment is quite limited. While the annual vaccination for the people will increase their resistance and minimize the risk of influenza infection for each person and reduce the burden on society, the current health insurance is not able to cover these types of costs. This is an issue that needs to be concerned.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Finance is managing more than 30 insurance companies, some of which are very large, making huge profits. These companies only report the results to the Ministry of Finance on the financial aspect without reporting to the Vietnam Social Security on health insurance buyers. This needs to be overcome not only for the profits of the insurance companies but also for the people's life and social security. How do these insurance funds contribute in this case of Covid-19?... From these issues, the Finance, Health and Social Insurance industries in Vietnam need to strengthen their coordination to perform better, towards universal health insurance coverage.

In order for Social Insurance to really be a main pillar of the country's social security system, I suggest that Vietnam Social Security and the concerned ministries and branches continue to thoroughly grasp the major views in Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW on reforming social insurance policies, to successfully implement the set goals. They are:

First, Vietnam Social Security is a main pillar of the social security system, in a socialist-oriented market economy, making an important contribution to the implementation of social progress and justice, ensuring social security, socio-political stability, people's life and national sustainable development.

Second, develop a flexible, diversified, multi-layered and modern social insurance system. Involve international integration, mobilizing social resources in the tradition of solidarity of the nation, aiming to cover the entire population in accordance with the roadmap, which is consistent with the conditions of socio-economic development, harmoniously combining the principles of paying-enjoying, ensuring equality, sharing and sustainability.

Third, social insurance policy reforms are both urgent and lasting, combining harmony between inheritance and stability with innovation and development, which must be put in correlation to the development innovation of the other social policies, especially salaries, income, allowances and  social assistance, so that all citizens are social security guaranteed.

Fourth, develop the organizational system to implement the social insurance policy to ensure streamliness, professionalism, efficiency and modernity, enhancing attractiveness and strengthening the confidence and satisfaction of the people and participants of Social Insurance.

Well implementing the social insurance policy is the task of the whole political system, the responsibility of the Party committees, the authorities, Vietnam National Front, the political-social organizations, businesses and every citizen. This is the job for the whole society, as the social insurance industry alone cannot do it.

Dear comrades,

Every success starts from a right vision, so I request Vietnam Social Security to set up a development strategy to become a modern, effective institution, gradually creating steady expansion, towards the goal of social insurance for all people, making sure everyone has a social security net and no one is left behind. Develop a flexible, diverse, multi-layered and modern social insurance system with international integration, respecting the principle of paying-enjoying. The system also needs fairness, equality, sharing and sustainability. Build a streamlined, professional, transparent and effective apparatus associated with the application of information technology and interconnection in policy implementation, so that Vietnam Social Security must be the leading model in operational reform with the spirit of service, ensuring the satisfaction of the people, constantly strengthening the beliefs of workers.

Here are my proposals to the whole Sector, which have 5 groups of solutions as follows:

First of all, continue to improve the social security system in an integrated manner for centralized, unified and shared management between the State, society and people, on the basis of adhering to goals and responsibilities of socio-economic development of the country.

The second is to strengthen reform of administrative procedures and application of information technology, continuing to complete the National Insurance Database, the legal basis for building, connecting and sharing the National Database of ministries, branches and localities with the National Database of Social Insurance. Deploy online public services, electronic payment, electronic transactions, articulation, resolving administrative procedures on the National data axis.

The third is that, I propose 21,000 cadres, civil servants, officials and employees in the whole sector to strengthen administrative discipline, change working styles and practices; set up indicators to monitor and evaluate the quality of service for people in all areas of work in the direction of modernization, professionalism, and people's friendliness in the spirit of the Government of creation, integrity and action for the people and the business.

The fourth is that, it is necessary to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of management in implementing policies; strengthen the management of social insurance fund; inspection, examination and supervision work; complete the financial mechanism so that social and health insurance policies are implemented consistently and conveniently for people.

Finally, strengthen the information and communication activities on social security in general, social insurance and health insurance in particular in order to raise the awareness and responsibility of all levels, sectors, unions as well as for the people to better understand the meaning, roles and benefits of social insurance and health insurance.

Dear comrades,

With these results and achievements in the past 25 years of the social insurance industry, they have given many valuable lessons, especially from the recent successes. I believe that this is a launching pad for social insurance officials to continue to unite, create, overcome all difficulties and challenges and successfully complete the assigned tasks, deserving the trust of the Party, the State, the Government and the people.

I would like to wish all delegates and all the officials, public servants and employees of Vietnam Social Security health. Wish our career for social security will make great strides in the coming period.

Sincerely thank you!