National Assembly delegates from Nghe An province debated amendments and supplements to a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance.

On the afternoon of October 31, at the National Assembly House, continuing the 8th Session, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh chaired the meeting.

Faced with different opinions when the draft Law is proposing to add relatives of regular militiamen to be covered by health insurance by the State, Major General Tran Duc Thuan - Standing Member of the National Assembly's National Defense and Security Committee, delegate of Nghe An delegation, spoke in debate, expressing his agreement with legalizing the above content.

According to the delegate, the Party and State always identify the armed forces as including the Army, the Police and the militia; in which the Secretariat has issued conclusions and directives to focus on building the militia in key security and defense areas; as well as paying due attention to policies for this force.

In accordance with the Party's viewpoint, the 2019 Law on Militia and Self-Defense Forces defines the militia and self-defense forces as consisting of mobile militia and standing militia; in which the standing militia is only organized in key areas of security and defense, with a service period of 2 years and after completing the task, it is recognized as having completed military service.

The law also stipulates social insurance and health insurance policies for regular militiamen similar to those for non-commissioned officers and soldiers serving in the army. However, according to General Thuan, currently, relatives of non-commissioned officers and soldiers serving in the army are entitled to health insurance purchased by the State, but relatives of regular militiamen are not.

He also said that according to the report of the Ministry of National Defense to the National Defense and Security Committee of the National Assembly, if the above proposal is legalized, there will be about 82,000 subjects who are relatives within the scope of the policy's impact, however, because 30% of them have enjoyed other health insurance regimes, the remaining 70% (about 57,000 people) have not enjoyed them.

It is said that according to the current contribution rate, the budget expenditure to buy health insurance for about 57,000 relatives of the regular militia and self-defense force is about 72 billion VND/year.

“Based on our country's current development resources, we see that allocating this amount of funding for this subject is not large. This is an early, long-term investment for increasingly strong national defense,” delegate Tran Duc Thuan expressed his opinion and earnestly requested that National Assembly deputies consider supporting the legalization of the above regulation.