According to the Working Program, after the delegates at-hall discussed  the Draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, the Minister of Health will explain and clarify a number of issues raised by National Assembly delegates.

Conducting the Session, the Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh said that the Law on Health Insurance, passed by the NA in 2008, had been amended and supplemented with a number of articles in 2014, is the highest legal basis, institutionalizing the Party's viewpoints and policies to realize the goal of universal health insurance. This is the third legislative session on health insurance.

Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh chaired the meeting. Photo: Quochoivn

The Vice Chairwoman of the NA emphasized that, along with the approval of the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment in 2023, the Law on Social Insurance in 2024, considering approval of the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy and the Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance at this session shows that the NA and the Government of the 15th tenure are making great efforts to effectively implement the Party's guidelines on achieving social progress and equity in each step and each policy as set out in the Platform for Development Supplement for the year 2011.

Along with social development, the process of conducting the implementation of the Law on Health Insurance has arisen many difficulties and shortcomings that have been fully identified by the Government in the Law Implementation Summary Report. In principle, to fundamentally resolve these difficulties and shortcomings, the Law on Health Insurance must be comprehensively amended. This is an opinion analyzed by many NA deputies in the group discussion. However, for objective reasons,  to create consistency and synchronization with the effective date of the medical examination and treatment level stipulated at the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment and to immediately remove some major obstacles and difficulties arsing from practice, creating favourable conditions for the people, especially those with serious illnesses, reducing the rate of out-of-pocket direct expenditures of health insurance participants when examining and treating patients, the Government submitted to the National Assembly a draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance for its comments and approval at the 8th session under the procedure at a session.

Vice Chairwoman of the NA Nguyen Thi Thanh said that in the morning of October 24th, 2024, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan, authorized by the Prime Minister, presented the Submission on the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance; Chairwoman of the NA's Social Committee Nguyen Thuy Anh presented the Report on the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance to the NA. In the same afternoon, the NA delegates in-group discussed the draft law and received much attention from the delegates; there were 137 comments and nearly 20 NA delegates’ written comments.

The Vice Chairwoman of the NA Nguyen Thi Thanh suggested that the NA delegates pay attention to discussing the following contents: Regulations related to health insurance participants; contribution levels and responsibilities; health insurance payment methods; health insurance cards; scope of health insurance benefits; health insurance benefits; the issue of multi-level medical examination and treatment.

Many in-groups discussed opinions and public opinion support the establishment of a breakthrough mechanism so that the people, especially those with rare diseases, serious diseases, and diseases using high technology, are no longer dependent on procedures for transferring medical examination and treatment facilities, but can go to any medical examination and treatment facility under their wishes. This is the biggest concern of the Chairman of the NA, the NA Standing Committee, and the leaders of the Government. Therefore, the drafting and the reviewing agencies have coordinated to design these contents at the Articles 21, 22, and 23. These are very urgent issues for the best interests of the people, requiring high determination and strong changes in the health system, so that the breakthrough policy shall be feasible. Besides, there are also concerns that this will create overload pressure on upper-level hospitals, limiting the activities of grassroots health care...