Vietnam has made great achievements in expanding social health insurance to more than half of its population at present, the World Bank hailed in its new report issued on Wednesday. The report – Moving Toward Universal Health Coverage of Social Health Insurance in Vietnam: Assessment and Options –  provides a comprehensive assessment of Vietnam’s implementation of its social health insurance program, the WB said in its press release the same day.  Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank Country Director for Vietnam, said that Vietnam has made significant progress toward achieving universal coverage for its population. The Vietnamese government has made ambitious plans toward reaching that goal, she said. “This study shows us how Vietnam can speed up this process in order to ensure a healthy Vietnamese population while reducing the health financial burden on the poor,” Victoria Kwakwa said. With more spending in the insurance program, which was piloted in 1989, the government has helped greatly boost the number of people with health coverage, the report said. In 2010, nearly 60 percent of Vietnamese had health insurance, six times higher than the 10 percent in the early 1990s. The Master Plan for Universal Coverage, which was approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2012, aims to expand coverage even further, to at least 70 percent of the population by 2015 and 80 percent by 2020, the report said.  The plan also sets the goal of reducing patients’ out-of-pocket costs to under 40 percent of total health care spending by 2015. But challenges remain facing the Southeast Asian country, the report said. The Government has provided larger subsidies for the near-poor, but low enrollment rates persist, even among those in the formal sector, where enrollment is mandatory. “Meanwhile, out-of-pocket costs still made up nearly 60 percent of health care costs in 2010, leaving households vulnerable to financial shocks,” the press release said. Recommendations In order to achieve the targets set out in the Master Plan, Vietnam should increase coverage through premium subsidies, greater family enrollment and enforcement of enrollment compliance, the report recommends. At the same time, the Government should cut down on extra charges outside of policy and introduce catastrophic cost coverage to improve equity and financial protection. Another important thing to do is strengthening health financing arrangements by ensuring money is spent more effectively and efficiently on drugs, providers, etc. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen accountability by strengthening the organization, management and governance of social health insurance, the report said.

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