Participants at the meeting also included VSS Deputy Director General Tran Dinh Lieu and heads of VSS units.

Positive results
At the meeting, Duong Van Hao, Director of the Department of Contribution Collection – Insurance Book and Card, reported on the results of the development of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants of the social insurance sector in the first ten months of the year.

As of October 2022, the number of participants in provinces and cities has increased rapidly. There are around 17.17 million people participating in social insurance nationwide, up 90,230 in comparison with the previous month. The figure is expected to rise by 287,000 people in the last two months of the year.

Regarding health insurance, there are more than 87 million participants, up 2.72 million in comparison with the same period last year. In the remaining months of the year, the rate of health insurance coverage is expected to reach over 92 per cent of the country’s total population.

The sector has so far fulfilled 81.5 per cent of the targets assigned by the Government and is expected to complete the targets by the year-end.

 VSS Director General Nguyen The Manh chairs the meeting

In October, the collection of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance premiums and the development of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants increased. However, in order to fulfil the set targets, challenges remain. The sector needs to mobilise more than 2 million social insurance participants, including over 1 million participants in compulsory social insurance and more than 900,000 participants in voluntary social insurance; over 1.1 million unemployment insurance participants; and over 3 million health insurance participants in the last two months of the year.

This is a big challenge, requiring localities to closely follow directions and guidelines from the Vietnam social insurance sector to implement proper measures to fulfil the set targets and review assigned targets and shortcomings to seek appropriate measures, according to Hao.

At the same time, he asked insurance agencies to focus on consulting local authorities to build and complete resolutions on assigning targets to develop the number of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants; mobilising the participation of businesses and society to have more policies and mechanisms to support disadvantaged people to take part in social insurance and health insurance; and creating flexible payment methods to create favourable conditions for participants; and organise training of staff involving in the collection of insurance premiums.

Illustrative image (internet)

Striving to fulfil set targets about social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants

VSS Deputy Director General Tran Dinh Lieu said with this progress, the whole sector will fulfil important targets. However, localities in the south will face more difficulties in developing the number of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants.

Participants at the meeting proposed some solutions to increase the collection of insurance premiums and the number of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants in the last months of the year, including speeding up unexpected inspections and strictly punishing violators of social insurance regulations; publicising the names of employers that evade payments of insurance premiums; and enhancing the application of information technology.

Concluding the meeting, VSS Director General Nguyen The Manh asked the whole social insurance sector to continue to implement measures resolutely to develop the number of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants.

He asked the Department of Contribution Collection – Insurance Book and Card to consult with leaders of VSS to issue concrete measures and require the implementation of these measures at different levels, including district level.

He called for continuing to speed up information dissemination and build detailed plans to develop the number of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance participants.

Localities and VSS units were required to launch movements and call for individuals, businesses and organisations to present health insurance cards and voluntary social insurance books for local residents.

“Units are ordered to build plans and prepare financial sources to start implementing the measures from next week and boost information dissemination to all 63 provinces and cities.”

Regarding supervision and inspection tasks, VSS Director General Manh called for continuing to enhance inspection and punishment for employers found to have social insurance and health insurance debts.

It is also necessary to speed up digital transformation following the Master Plan of the Government and give priority to the completion of professional software to meet the increasing demands of localities./.