Vietnamese government will give support to family members’ health insurance aiming to expand coverage even further, to at least 70 percent of the population by 2015 and 80 percent by 2020, said Tong Thi Song Huong, head of the Department of Health Insurance under the Ministry of Health.
As per an amendment of Medicine Insurance Law which takes effect on January 1, 2015, it is mandatory to purchase health insurance. In a bid to encourage people to purchase health insurance, the government will give premium subsidies for greater family enrollment.
For instance, the first member of a family will buy health insurance with 4.5 percent of their basic salary, then the second, third and fourth members of the family will just pay 70 percent, 60 percent and 50 percent of the first’s payment respectively.
Furthermore, the government will buy health insurance for those who live in disadvantaged districts and islands. The poor, people from ethnic minority groups and relatives of martyrs will not pay 5 percent of treatment cost like before. The government will cover all.
Moreover, the new law also stipulates that those who live in islands and disadvantaged districts will enjoy benefit when they are outpatients even.
