Representatives from VSS hand over financial packages to the Vietnam Fatherland Front to assist people in the flood-hit areas of the central region.

The VSS joined the movement right after the Prime Minister launched the campaign.

All VSS civil servants and public employees have joined the campaign, contributing to the realisation of the national target on sustainable poverty reduction in the 2016-20 period.

The VSS has asked its departments and local social security agencies to strive to achieve the sector’s targets, including 90.7 per cent of health insurance coverage by 2020; adopting solutions to increase the number of people participating in voluntary health insurance and social insurance, especially those from poor, near-poor households and ethnic minorities; implementing policies and programmes on sustainable poverty reduction, ensuring 100 per cent of the poor, national devotees, old people and those from ethnic minorities are granted health insurance cards.

At the same time, VSS agencies are tasked with calling for donations for health insurance payment which has not been covered by the State budget to assist people of near-poor households, students and social policy beneficiaries.

The poverty reduction criteria have been integrated into political targets of provincial social security agencies. Therefore, the campaign’s reward criteria are also the reward criteria of the agency.

Local social security agencies have proposed the provincial people’s committees, people’s councils and Party committees to allocate local budget to support people with health insurance payment, especially those living in disadvantaged conditions, people in poor and mountainous areas, and the elderly in order to stablise the number of health insurance card holders.

The agencies have also co-ordinated with the steering committee for poverty reduction to encourage and create favourable conditions for people to join health insurance scheme, looking towards universal health insurance coverage.

VSS employees take part in annual charity programmes such as raising funds to buy health insurance cards; upgrading and building houses, roads for the poor; presenting gifts for mothers of national heroes and scholarships for poor students.

More than VND41 billion (US$1.7 million) in cash and 3,300 health insurance cards have been presented to near-poor households, farming households and policy beneficiaries. 

Thanks to the attachment of poverty reduction criteria with the sector’s targets, the number of people participating in social security, health insurance and unemployment insurance every year has increased and exceeded the Prime Minister’s assignment.

The figure increased from 76 million in 2016 to 86.5 million in 2019 and continued to reach 86.7 million people on September 30, 2020, hitting 98.49 per cent of the target.

Collection from social security, health insurance and unemployment insurance payment from 2016 to 2019 all completed the assignment.

Benefits for insurance card holders are continuously ensured and upgraded.

In 2016, nearly 8.67 million insurance cardholders enjoyed benefits. The number increased to 12.5 million people in 2019.

The number of people with medical expenses covered by health insurance rose from 146 million in 2016 to 184 million in 2019, an increase of 26 per cent./.