Tran made the proposal on June 1 at the National Assembly (NA)’s session discussing the country’s social-economic development.

Tran said that currently, businesses nationwide have been found to fail to pay social insurance contributions for about 2.7 million employees.

Of which, more than 200,000 employees have not received benefits from the social insurance fund because their businesses went bankrupt, dissolved or the businesses’ owners fled, she said.

Hundreds of thousands of labourers have their salaries deducted to contribute to the social insurance fund each month, but their benefits are not fully guaranteed because the businesses have yet to pay the contributions according to regulations, she added.

National Assembly deputy Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran at the NA’s session discussing the country’s social-economic development on June 1. Photo quochoi.vn

She also said that, recently, the number of unemployed workers has increased rapidly after many businesses had few orders from partners.

These workers have a need for unemployment benefits, but they cannot receive the benefits because their businesses have yet to pay social insurance contributions according to regulations, she said.

Therefore, she submitted to the Government to direct relevant agencies to severely handle the businesses that failed to pay social insurance in order to ensure the legitimate rights of employees.

The Government was also advised to issue policies to support affected employees, she said.

Besides, Tran expressed her agreement with assessments on an additional report of the Government’s implementation of the country’s socio-economic development plan and the State budget last year as well as the Government’s implementation of the country’s socio-economic development plan and State budget in the first months of this year.

However, she also commented that the health of businesses is not good now.

In the meantime, some inadequacies in the implementation of mechanisms and policies have still caused many difficulties for businesses, she said.

National Assembly deputy Truong Xuan Cu at the NA’s session discussing the country’s social-economic development on June 1. Photo Pham Thang

Also at the session, regarding health insurance for the elderly, NA deputy Truong Xuan Cu, of Ha Noi City, said that statistics showed that about 500,000 elderly people have yet to have health insurance across the country.

Many localities have purchased health insurance for all the elderly, but some localities have purchased health insurance for only 90 per cent of the total elderly population in recent years, he said.

The country now has about 16.1 million elderly people. But only five million elderly people have social insurance and receive social assistance, while 11 million people still have to work to earn a living, he said.

“If we are not interested in health insurance for these elderly, they will face many difficulties,” he said.

He said about 95 per cent of the elderly in Viet Nam have underlying diseases.

Thus, he proposed to the NA and the Government to consider using the State budget to buy health insurance for the elderly. 

Research by the Institute of Population, Health and Development shows that 62.3 per cent of elderly people have high blood pressure, and only 86.3 per cent have access to healthcare services in Viet Nam.

The research also reveals that, on average, an elderly person has three diseases that need monitoring and medical care.

It is forecast that by 2049 the number of elderly people needing medical support will increase by 2.5 times compared to the current level of 4 million people.

The number of elderly people in Việt Nam has increased rapidly in recent years. The elderly population aged 65 and over increased from 6.4 per cent in 2009 to 7.7 per cent in 2019 and 8.3 per cent in 2021./.