NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue delivered a speech at the Group discussion session on the implementation of social insurance policies and regimes, management and use of the Social Insurance Fund in 2020 and the management and use of the Health Insurance Fund in 2020, and the implementation of the Decree No. Decision No. 68/2013/QH13 on promoting the implementation of policies and laws related to health insurance towards universal health insurance in 2019-2020, photo source: Quochoi.vn

Management and implementation of social and health insurance policies: Improvement and orderliness

Previously, reports on social and health insurance were only sent to NA's deputies for self-study, but at this session, the Government has presented a report to the NA, NA's agency conducted the official verification and the NA debated. Moreover, the Social Insurance Fund and the Health Insurance Fund are the largest non-budget state financial funds and are connected to the state budget. Ratio of state budget payments to social and health insurance premiums. Therefore, the NA's Standing Committee requested a report to the NA to discuss issues of people's livelihood, directly related to the people and workers.

The NA Chairman highly appreciated the reports of the Government through receiving opinions of the NA's Standing Committee, which have been revised and completed, basically ensuring good quality; the verification reports also ensure thorough, clear with specific recommendations. The NA Chairman believes that, after being discussed at the NA, the management and implementation of social and health insurance policies have been improved and put into order.

Discussion at group 03 includes full-time NA's deputies, central NA's deputies from NA's Delegation in Hai Phong, Son La, Bac Kan, Thanh Hoa, Dak Nong, Soc Trang, and Kien Giang

Improve the quality of medical treatment for people

Regarding health insurance, the NA Chairman noted a number of issues that have been set out for a long time but need to be promoted more strongly. First, the family doctor model. Second, the concept and the development and regulation of the basic medical service package. Third, the issue of payment and settlement of health insurance.

The NA Chairman also agreed with the Social Committee's proposal to include in the Resolution of this session or the socio-economic resolution assigning the Government to perform a number of tasks such as investing in capacity building of grassroots and preventive medicine; adjust health insurance premiums to suit the ability of the state budget and the people to pay. In particular, the NA Chairman noted the proposal to adjust the health insurance premium to improve the quality of medical treatment for people.

Regarding investment in capacity building in grassroots health and preventive medicine, the NA Chairman stated that in 2019 the Government had carefully discussed and decided to use part of the World Bank's ODA capital to invest in health stations in disadvantaged areas; to further strengthen investment resources in grassroots health and preventive medicine as the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the important role of grassroots health and preventive medicine, however, the NA Chairman also noted that localities must strictly comply with the provisions of the State Budget Law to ensure that at least 30% of the state budget is spent on the health sector for preventive medicine.

Regarding the district-level health center and hospital, Hue said that Resolution 19-NQ/TW on renovation and arrangement of public non-business units had suggestions on immediate transfer of these facilities to managed by the local authority, while the Ministry of Health only manages professional expertise. When assigning district hospitals and district health stations to local management, they will be closely associated with responsibility, personnel, investment, equipment and technical facilities. In fact, the recent assessment of epidemic prevention and control shows that, places being handed over to the district for management have performed well from appointing personnel, taking care of facilities, and health sector has only been responsible for professional management. Therefore, Hue requested the Minister of Justice and the Chairman of the Law Committee to carefully study this issue and include it in the NA's resolution for definitive handling. In particular, it is emphasized that the state management agencies focus on the state management function, not the management of non-business units.

Currently, the Ministry of Health has also transferred to localities to manage hospitals and only retained management of a few key hospitals. Medical centers and district hospitals are also completely similar. Hue said that this model is very suitable, but currently there is no consensus among localities, so it is necessary to have the direction of the Government, the health sector, to review calculations and include in the resolution to strengthen grassroots health care and preventive medicine.

The NA Chairman added that the assignment of district hospitals and district health centers to district-level management will also contribute to better implementation of preventive medicine and grassroots health care as preventive medicine budget is allocated by budget level. The NA's Standing Committee was also very resolute in keeping the budget allocation norms for grassroots health care… The NA's Standing Committee had a thorough discussion and the Government also quickly absorbed it to maintain spending levels on health care. This shows the interest of the Party and the State. On this issue, the Government and the NA have a relatively high consensus.