Speaking at the seminar, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Kim, Vice Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities emphasised the significant role of the social insurance and health insurance policies in the social security system, which aim to ensure equality among people and measure the development of a society.

(Source: Internet)

Media and communications play an important role in the effective enforcement of these policies as they help translate the policies into reality, he said.

The seminar provided a comprehensive and scientific view of media and communications in the enforcement of social insurance and health insurance policies through some 30 presentations with different points of view, from policy makers and policy enforcement bodies to news agencies and journalism education establishments.

The presentations also gave attendees statistics from recent surveys on the current status of media and communications in the enforcement of social insurance and health insurance policies on various types of media, including printed and online newspapers, radio and social network.

They later suggested ways to boost communications on the social insurance and health insurance policies in tandem with needs of different groups of insurance holders.

MSc. Le Van Phuc, Deputy Director of the Health Insurance and Social Insurance Implementation Department, gave an overview of practical requirements when promoting communications on the policies, particularly in the enforcement of new regulations on social insurance and health insurance.

According to Phuc, to sustainably expand the coverage of health insurance, it is necessary to raise public awareness of benefits they get from the insurance through communications campaigns. These campaigns should focus on family health insurance, fines posed for breaches of social insurance, health insurance-related regulations.

In the time ahead, new regulations will be introduced to amend health care services for health insurance holders while a new design for health insurance card will also be launched.

From the perspective of a newspaper, Tran Ngoc Ha from the Vietnam Law Newspaper said there is limited access to information on social insurance and health insurance for journalists and a lack of effective cooperation between the Vietnam Social Security (VSS) and news agencies. The journalists are mostly not proactive in finding facts on the implementation of these policies. In fact, there is not a team of journalists specialized on social insurance and health insurance issues.

From the view of the social security agency, cooperation and investment in communications has been much improved but it is necessary to evaluate the efficiency of the work instead of merely focusing on quantity measurement.

To enhance the effectiveness of communications on social insurance and health insurance policies, both the VSS and news agencies should diversify the sources of information suitable for each communication channels and media platforms. The cooperation must focus on improving the content quality in which the VSS should play a core role in spreading messages on social and health insurance policies among the public.

Presentations and discussions at the seminar also mentioned other issues in the communications on social insurance and health insurance. Some presentations recommended the VSS to promote the use of new media tools like social network, forums and community groups. Factors related to particular groups such as students, students, female workers and ethnic minority people as well as local regional characteristics were also discussed, with these groups’ impacts on the communication outlined.

International Cooperation Department