Health insurance coverage in the Phan Son highlands

Phan Son, a highland commune with a pure ethnic minority population, has quite good health insurance coverage, with a high health insurance coverage rate among the 17 communes and towns of Bac Binh district.

From subsidy to self-sufficiency

Holding the list of results of developing participants in health insurance and voluntary social insurance of Bac Binh district in my hand, I did not think that Phan Son, a poor commune of purely ethnic minorities in the district, would be in the top position on the list. With a rate of over 87%, just behind the remote commune of Phan Tien (the highest among 17 communes and towns), the only commune of the district in region II still has a particularly difficult village that enjoys free health insurance according to Decision 861 of the Prime Minister .

Remember 3 years ago, when the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 861 approving the list of communes in regions I, II, III in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for the period 2021 - 2025, replacing Decision No. 582/QD-TTg dated April 28, 2017 of the Prime Minister for the period 2016 - 2020. Binh Thuan had 35,876 people who were no longer eligible for free health insurance. Of which, 27,777 were ethnic minority people living in areas with difficult socio-economic conditions and 8,099 were in areas with particularly difficult socio-economic conditions. The fact that they were no longer entitled to this policy in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic at that time, affected all aspects of life, causing not only the people but also the local authorities to worry. Because the majority of ethnic minorities in Binh Thuan are still poor, they are used to the State supporting economic development and free health insurance. Although they know that there are many suitable policies that continue to accompany them, it is not easy for them to spend their own money to buy health insurance cards.

Phan Son has 4,176 people, mainly farmers, with unstable income. Of these, 3,699 people are no longer eligible for free health insurance. K'Bay - Chairman of the People's Committee of Phan Son commune at that time sadly told me: "The commune has implemented the spirit of Decision No. 861 for people to understand so they can take care of themselves. However, we are also worried about the difficulty of mobilizing people to buy health insurance, because people are used to receiving free health insurance and only buy it when needed. People's lives are still poor, they work day by day, so it is very difficult to buy health insurance for themselves or for their family."

Today I came back and saw K'Bay not sad but smiling, he happily said: "Regarding health insurance, there is no need to worry, except for poor households and policy households that are exempted from health insurance, we persuade them to buy all the rest. Currently, the rate of buying health insurance in the commune is nearly 90%, higher than other communes in the whole district."

Campaign efforts

To achieve that rate, the Phan Son Party Committee and government mobilized the entire political system to participate, in which all leaders, cadres, employees, and workers from the commune down to the village must buy health insurance to set an example. "Every month, I require departments, branches, unions, special associations, and village chiefs to review who in their agencies, organizations, and units does not buy health insurance. If there are cases of not buying, they will not be able to complete their tasks well at the end of the year," Mr. K'Bay emphasized. K'Bay added: "If I do not do that, I cannot mobilize people to buy health insurance because if commune officials do not buy, who will listen to what they say? Moreover, buying health insurance is protecting the health of yourself and your family, in case of illness or sickness, health insurance will take care of it... There were people who did not buy it at first, but after I personally mobilized and persuaded them by telling them the story of my family members, they bought it."

Up to now, most Phan Son people are well aware that buying health insurance is beneficial for them, so they participate in buying it. Some families buy health insurance for all family members like Mr. K'Teo's family in Bon Thop village. The family has 4 members, each year he saves nearly 3 million VND to buy health insurance. He explained that everyone gets sick sometimes, if you don't take care of it in advance, who will take care of it when you get sick. Everyone here buys it because they are afraid of the high hospital fees.

It can be seen that the Party Committee and the government of Phan Son are clearly aware that in the context of rising medical service prices, participating in voluntary health insurance will bring practical benefits to people when they are unfortunately sick and have to go to medical facilities for examination and treatment. However, to implement voluntary health insurance for households, moving towards universal health insurance, in addition to the efforts of the functional sectors, it also depends a lot on the coordination and participation of Party Committees, local authorities, organizations and each citizen.

Mr. Tran Ngoc Tuan - Director of Social Insurance of Bac Binh district, said that according to the list of health insurance participants in Bac Binh this year, in addition to Phan Tien, which has a special village exempted from buying health insurance according to Decision No. 861 of the Prime Minister, with a high participation rate, some other communes such as Phan Son have a rate of 88%. For a commune with many difficulties, the participation of people like that is quite good. Hopefully, in the coming time, people in Phan Son in particular and other communes in general will be covered by health insurance in the whole commune, to ensure better health care for the people, contributing to the development of the local economy and society.

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