Nghe An National Assembly delegation discussed in groups about 2 draft laws

The Nghe An National Assembly delegation discussed in Group 3 with the delegations of the provinces: Bac Giang and Quang Ngai. Attending the discussion session was comrade Nguyen Hoa Binh - Politburo member, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister, National Assembly Delegate of Bac Giang province.

Comrade Thai Thanh Quy - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council, Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province chaired the discussion session.

Draft Law proposes to increase health insurance contribution rate to 6%

Discussing the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Nghe An province mentioned a new point and also a very important change: instead of the current health insurance contribution rate of 4.5% of the basic salary, according to the Draft Law, it will increase to 6%, in which the employer contributes 2/3 and the employee contributes 1/3.

Delegates commented that this increase is considered reasonable to ensure the balance of the Health Insurance Fund and not create too much burden for employees and employers; however, when implemented, there will be many challenges such as: Increased burden for employees and businesses in the context of economic difficulties, especially for low-income people, small and medium enterprises; risk of evasion and delay in paying health insurance.

Therefore, to minimize negative impacts, according to delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh, when the Government details the implementation of the Law, it is necessary to have additional policies to support low-income workers, rural areas, mountainous areas, remote areas, and particularly difficult areas; have preferential policies to encourage businesses to participate in paying health insurance for employees; strengthen the management of the effective use of the Health Insurance Fund; inspect, check, and handle cases of evasion of health insurance payment; and raise people's awareness.

The delegate of Nghe An also highly appreciated the inclusion in the Law of regulations on paying health insurance by household, accordingly, the contribution level for household members from the second person onwards will be reduced.

“This is humane, sharing the financial burden for large families, encouraging people to participate in health insurance,” said delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh, adding that: There should be more policies to support poor and near-poor families, households with many elderly people and children so that they can fully participate in health insurance; it is possible to consider adjusting the contribution level of the first person in the household to ensure income and expand the number of participants; at the same time, the draft Law also needs to clarify the concept and criteria of “household” for convenient application in practice, avoiding policy exploitation.

Delegate Thai Van Thanh - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An province expressed his agreement with the amendment of the Law on Health Insurance to resolve current difficulties and ensure the rights of health insurance participants.

He also suggested that in this amendment to the Law, it should not be limited, but should add criteria for initial registration of health insurance examination wishes to facilitate health insurance payment subjects. Because currently, according to State management, it is necessary to divide the regions, but in reality, health insurance payment subjects have the need to have health insurance examinations near home, near children, and register at other hospitals.

The delegate of Nghe An delegation also raised concerns that the implementation of financial autonomy for medical examination and treatment facilities has led to a situation where some lower-level hospitals "keep" patients for treatment; it is very difficult for patients to transfer to other hospitals, so the Law needs to supplement specific transfer criteria to ensure equal rights and the needs of health insurance payers.

Delegate Thai Van Thanh also hopes that the Law will have regulations on exemption and reduction of health insurance premiums for students in rural and mountainous areas, ethnic minorities and disadvantaged people to facilitate their right to medical examination and treatment, in accordance with the socio-economic conditions of the people.

Mr. Tran Nhat Minh - National Assembly member in charge of Nghe An delegation proposed to consider including some subjects that are covered by the State's health insurance; remove the regulation on the type of initial medical examination and treatment "medical room of agency, unit, organization" to ensure consistency between related laws, because in the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment 2023, the Government's Decree on the form of organization of medical examination and treatment facilities does not have "medical room of agency, unit, organization".

Data needs to be “correct, sufficient, clean, alive, safe, and effective”

Discussing the Data Law Project, Mr. Hoang Minh Hieu - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Law Committee, a delegate from Nghe An delegation highly agreed on the necessity of promulgating this Law in the context of data playing an increasingly important role in life.

“China has seen data as a new means of production; some Western countries see data as the new ‘oil or soil,’” he said.

However, to avoid bottlenecks in the process of implementing and developing the digital economy and national digital transformation, he said that it is necessary to thoroughly study the relationship between draft laws on national digital transformation to have a complete legal framework to regulate digital transformation; thereby determining the scope of regulation of draft laws, including the Data Law, in the most accurate way.

Regarding the content of the Data Law Project, through specific evidence, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu expressed his opinion that the Law should regulate contents under the authority of the National Assembly, not issues under decrees and vice versa.

In addition, regarding the regulations on the establishment of the National Data Center, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu suggested that the Law should clearly define whether this is a physical center or an agency, or a combination of both. According to him, it should be regulated in the direction of including these two factors.

Also regarding the Data Law Project, Major General Tran Duc Thuan - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Security and Defense Committee, delegate of Nghe An delegation, requested the drafting agency to study and supplement the layout; assess policy impacts; clearly define the rights, obligations and responsibilities of organizations and individuals in the issue of providing, managing, exploiting and sharing data; the goal is that data must reflect the spirit of "correct, sufficient, clean, alive, safe and effective".