Proposal to support purchasing health insurance cards for people past retirement age

Mr. Ho Phuc Hop - Member of the Standing Committee, Head of the Provincial Party Committee's Propaganda Department, Head of the Provincial People's Council's Culture and Social Affairs Department chaired the meeting. Photo: Minh Chi

Recently, the implementation of policies and laws on health insurance in the province has been focused on by all levels and sectors, creating many changes in awareness among all classes of people.

Since then, the rate of people participating in health insurance in the province has increased year by year. In 2015, it reached 76.58% and increased to 86.38% in 2017.

However, the biggest limitation in implementing health insurance is that the rate of people of working age participating in health insurance in general, especially workers in enterprises, is still low. The rate of people participating in health insurance is not uniform among localities, for example, in Yen Thanh district it only reached 69.85%.

To continue increasing the rate of people participating in health insurance, towards universal health insurance, ensuring social security, Director of the Provincial Social Insurance Le Truong Giang proposed that the Provincial People's Council should have a policy to support the purchase of health insurance cards for people past working age who do not have health insurance cards (55 years old for women and 60 years old for men).

Director of the Provincial Social Insurance, Le Truong Giang, proposed that there should be a policy to support the purchase of health insurance cards for people past retirement age who do not have one. Photo: Minh Chi

Regarding the use of fund sources, Director of the Provincial Social Insurance, Le Truong Giang, said that Nghe An is still a province with a large health insurance deficit.

Objective reasons, according to Mr. Giang, are due to the adjustment of technical service prices and the impact of the interconnected medical examination and treatment policy, the average contribution on the health insurance card is low compared to the national average, the rate of people enjoying 100% of medical examination and treatment costs is high, accounting for 54% of the total number of people participating in health insurance.

Subjectively, some medical facilities attract people by increasing technical service prescriptions; separating inpatient and outpatient records, leading to an increase in the number of treatments as well as increased medical examination and treatment costs; and admitting patients with mild illnesses for inpatient treatment...

At the meeting, based on direct supervision at a number of localities and medical facilities, many members of the Provincial People's Council working group raised many issues requesting the Social Security agency to continue paying attention.

Deputy Head of the Culture - Social Affairs Committee, Provincial People's Council Nguyen Thi Lan suggested that the Social Insurance Agency should step up propaganda in localities with a high rate of health insurance participants and groups with low health insurance participation rates, especially employers and people with labor contracts of 1 month or more.

Deputy Head of the Legal Committee, Provincial People's Council Thai Thi An Chung said that it is necessary to change the way of propaganda. In addition to propagating the purchase of health insurance cards, it is also necessary to propagate the responsibilities of card users in a reasonable way...

Head of the Culture - Social Committee, Provincial People's Council Ho Phuc Hop concluded the meeting. Photo: Minh Chi

Concluding the meeting, Head of the Culture - Social Committee, Provincial People's Council Ho Phuc Hop affirmed that Resolution 7 of the Central Committee (12th term) on reforming social insurance policies emphasized that social insurance, including health insurance, is a key pillar to ensure social security.

The requirement is to gradually and steadily expand the coverage of social insurance, towards the goal of universal social insurance; develop a flexible, diverse, multi-layered, modern and internationally integrated social insurance system according to the principles of fair, equitable, sharing and sustainable contribution and benefit.

Therefore, the Head of the monitoring delegation requested that the provincial Social Insurance agency need to have solutions to effectively implement health insurance policies and laws in the province, focusing on propaganda work.

Along with that, the Social Insurance also needs to coordinate with the Department of Health to manage and use the health insurance fund reasonably, ensuring the best benefits for health insurance participants and fund safety.

On the other hand, the Social Insurance agency also needs to pay attention to overcoming the shortcomings and limitations in the implementation of health insurance policies and laws.