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The evolution of social health insurance in Vietnam and its role towards achieving universal health coverage

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-21, 00:25 authored by Le, NQ, Christopher BlizzardChristopher Blizzard, Lei SiLei Si, Long GiangLong Giang, Amanda NeilAmanda Neil
Our research examines the development of social health insurance (SHI) in Vietnam between 1992 and 2016 and SHI's role as a financial mechanism towards achieving universal health coverage (UHC). We reviewed and analysed legislation from the Government of Vietnam (GoV) and performance data from the GoV and the World Bank. Stages of development were identified from legislative change leading to change in SHI functioning as a public financing mechanism: revenue collection, pooling of risk, and purchasing. Movement towards UHC was assessed relative to: population coverage, benefit coverage, and financial protection. Vietnam has implemented SHI through five stages: Stage I (1992–1998), Stage II (1998–2005), Stage III (2005–2008), Stage IV (2008–2014), and Stage V (2014 onwards). Coverage has widened from a compulsory scheme for civil servants and pensioners and a voluntary scheme for others, to a scheme that targets the entire population. However, UHC has not been achieved with 19% of the population uninsured in 2016 and high out-of-pocket payments. The benefit package includes a wide range of services and many expensive medications and considered to be generous. It is recommended that Vietnam focus on improving population coverage rather than further expanding the benefit package to achieve UHC.

History

Publication title

Health Policy Open

Article number

100011

Number

100011

Pagination

1-12

ISSN

2590-2296

Department/School

Menzies Institute for Medical Research

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Place of publication

Netherlands

Rights statement

Copyright 2021 the authors, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Health policy evaluation; Health system performance (incl. effectiveness of programs)

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