That is one of assessments made by VSS deputy general director Tran Dinh Lieu in his recent article about the innovation spirit and determination inspired by Resolution No 28.

Resolution No 28 was issued on May 23, 2018, by the Party Central Committee in the 12th tenure, setting targets to develop voluntary social insurance participants.

The improvements in law enforcement have contributed to disseminating social insurance policies to the public, expanding insurance coverage and creating an impetus for ensuring social security of every citizen and labourer, he said.

Illustrative image (source: internet)

Over the past three years, VSS has held numerous activities to bring the resolution to life.

The agency has worked closely with ministries, sectors and the media to step up dissemination on voluntary insurance, expand the insurance collection network and insurance collection and payment services.

The target of developing the social and health insurance membership network has become one of the socio-economic development goals of all provinces and cities nationwide.

Expanding insurance coverage

In his article, deputy general director Lieu highlighted outstanding statistics in insurance policy implementation.

The network of insurance collection agencies and collaborators has been expanded.

Systems of agents and collaborator networks have been expanded. To date, the whole country has operated over 12,400 agents for the collection of social insurance and health insurance, over 37,300 collection agencies and over 52,200 collecting agents. Systems of agents are distributed in communes, wards and towns. The distribution of the network of collaborators is also even among villages, hamlets and residential groups to create favourable conditions for people to access policies and participate.

The insurance coverage has kept expanding in terms of quality and quantity, especially in voluntary social insurance.

Illustrative image (source: internet)

Nearly 280,000 people participated in voluntary social insurance in the 10 years between 2008 and 2018.

In 2019 alone, a year after Resolution 28 was issued, there were nearly 300,000 new members of voluntary insurance, which was considered ‘a breakthrough achievement’.

Since 2020, in spite of challenges posed by COVID-19, the expansion of insurance membership still obtained positive results with more than 1.1 million new members, doubling the figure of 2019.

Resolution 28 sets the target in which farmers and informal-sector labourers participating in voluntary social insurance make up about 1 per cent of the working-age workforce by the end of 2021. This target was realised in 2020, even exceeding the target.

In the context of the pandemic and natural disasters, VSS has applied flexible solutions like one-time payment for two months of pension, replacing paper insurance cards with the digital app VssID.

In 2020, more than 151,100 people received pension and monthly allowances. More than 990,000 people enjoyed lump-sum payments. More than 9.8 million people received sickness, maternity allowances. More than 1 million people enjoyed unemployment allowance and financial aid for apprentice training.

In the first four months of this year, monthly social insurance allowances were paid to about 22,000 people. Nearly 366,000 people asked for lump-sum allowances and more than 3 million others enjoyed sickness, maternity and health recovery allowances.

Making social insurance a pillar of social security system

Besides remarkable results, the VSS deputy director has pointed out some shortcomings and limitations in implementing the social insurance policy and laws.

The social insurance policy has left behind groups who are willing to participate in the insurance scheme and able to pay such as owners of household businesses, unpaid business managers, and employees working under flexible regimes. In addition, voluntary social insurance policies are not attractive enough to call for public participation. The number of people asking for lump-sum allowances has kept rising while insurance debts, payment evasion and fraud have been reported in numerous localities, he said.

About 67.7 per cent of people of working age have not participated in social insurance.

If nothing is changed, there will be a large number of elderly people and employees who are no longer of working age and not entitled to social insurance.

This will create pressure for families and society, as well as have negative impacts on social security policy in particular and the country's socio-economy in general.

Deputy director Lieu proposed three solutions in order make social insurance truly a system that covers the entire population.

Firstly, he said proposals and recommendations should be amended in terms of conditions and payment time of voluntary social insurance premiums for pension enjoyment, in combination with adjustment of the calculation methods on pension entitlement; increasing State support for people holding voluntary social insurance cards; adding flexible and short-term policies on sickness and maternity to attract more members.

Secondly, the VSS should strengthen the coordination with ministries, sectors, media agencies, news agencies, newspapers, committees and authorities at all levels to promote communication and propaganda activities in various and diversified forms; in which, direct propagation and mobilisation will be used to raise people’s awareness about the necessity, position, roles, meaning, benefits and obligations when participating in social insurance so that they are active and voluntary.

Thirdly, enhancing the application of information technology in management and administrative procedure reform; strengthening professional training and management; and regularly checking the performance of tasks within the organisation and the apparatus of the collection tasks and the collection agencies to promptly rectify violations and harassment, which limit the results of the performance in development./.